The Steam Engine

Angola – Nothing To Do With Football

2010-01-09T15:31:00.006Z

Yesterday, a bus carrying the Togolese squad for the African Cup of Nations through the northern Angolan province of Cabinda was machine-gunned, resulting in the death of the driver, and the wounding of several passengers. The footage of shaken survivors making their way to safety had echoes of the similar incident last March in Pakistan where the Sri Lanka cricket team were fired upon.

Because this act of terrorism coincides with the world of football, this morning’s television saw a bewildering array of underqualified retired sportsmen pontificating on the politics of southern Africa in a way that even Paul Merson recognised as laughable.

I watched Sky Sports Soccer Saturday earlier today and, much as I admire Jeff Stelling, I am not sure his bantering style is quite right for matters of African politics. His encyclopaedic knowledge of League Two centre-backs was not much use when he asked Charlie Nicholas’ opinion on the situation.

Champagne Charlie cleverly combined a breathtakingly cavalier lack of knowledge with a subtle piece of implicit racism by saying that “some of these countries are unstable. We know that.” Which countries, Charlie? Former Portuguese colonies? Countries with abundant natural resources? Oh, you can’t mean, oh dear this is awkward, black countries? Can you? Not sure what he meant, but anyway, they are unstable. And they all look the same to me.

Next to share his wisdom was Matthew Le Tissier who expressed concern for the upcoming World Cup. It took me a minute to figure out what he meant until he spelled it out – “that meant to be in Africa too.”

Surely not? Surely Matt Le Tissier wasn’t just comparing Angola to South Africa as surely as if they were the same country? Oh I’m afraid he was. This is laughable. The Cabinda region is to the North of Angola, and is thousands of miles from South Africa. The next time there is a bomb in Ingushetia, should we consider cancelling the London Olympics? The distances are roughly the same.

What Charlie and Le Tiss had done was to cleverly avoid any reference to the facts or the history of the situation before opening their stupid mouths.

As a counterpoint to the casual indifference you will be hearing from the media, why not learn a little about the fifty year long conflict that has led us to this point.

Angola was, until the second half of the twentieth century, a Portuguese colony. Alongside the other independence movements that flourished throughout Africa, Angola had several armed factions who tried to throw off the European yoke. Eventually, in 1975, after a coup led to the collapse of the fascist Portuguese regime, the new left-wing government conceded independence to Angola.

The main independence movements in Angola were the communist MPLA and the anti-communist UNITA. After their uneasy coalition had earned them the prize of independence, they immediately plunged their new country into a 27-year-long, draining and bloody civil war. During the Cold War, the Soviets and Cubans funded their ideological brethren the MPLA, whilst America and South Africa both provided support to UNITA.

The result was an ever-escalating, all consuming conflagration that rendered the entire country a generation-long war zone. In 2002, life expectancy in Angola was less than 40 years, and today there are still an estimated 15 million landmines planted around the country.

Cabinda is a small enclave separated from the rest of Angola by a thirty-mile stretch of coastline that gives the larger Democratic Republic of Congo access to the Atlantic Ocean.

When independence was granted, Cabinda became part of the Republic of Angola, although crucially, nobody from the Cabindan Independence movement was present at the signing of that agreement. In short, many felt that they had simply been transferred from one colonial overlord to another.

During the civil war, the MPLA held control of the region by force, with an independence movement – The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) – fighting a long guerrilla campaign, killing government troops and kidnapping foreign workers.

In 2002, when the civil war ended in the rest of Angola, it rumbled on here, with the government continuing to rule Cabinda with an iron fist. Human Rights Watch claim that there are still atrocities happening in the area, and FLEC’s campaign for independence has never gone away.

So far, so messy. But I haven’t told you the best part: Cabinda is swimming in oil, producing 700,000 barrels per day – 65% of Angola’s crude production comes from Cabinda’s “Block Zero” oil field. 90% of Angola’s state budget is provided by oil sales, and so it is no surprise that the government is keen to brutally suppress any idea of independence.

The largest player in Cabinda Oil is ChevronTexaco, who have a 39.2% share in production. Operating from behind barbed wire and armed guards in their Malongo Terminal base, it is unlikely that their American employees have any idea what is going on in Cabinda.

Rather than benefiting from this wealth though, the people of Cabinda continue to be oppressed. A 2006 report to the European Parliament spoke of “beatings, torture and disappearances,” whilst Human Rights Watch tell of military tribunals replacing civilian trials for any crimes considered to be related to state security.

And so, we arrive at the barbaric and indiscriminate shooting of machine gun fire into a bus filled with foreign footballers. This is absolutely indefensible, and an indication of how all-encompassing war can be.

What I will say, though, is that allowing Africans to benefit from the natural resources in their land would probably equate to less hostility. Rather than exploiting their mineral wealth and oppressing those who question the situation, local people and their representatives should be included in the decision-making processes of the oil industry.

If a fraction of the wealth being generated in Block Zero were filtered to the people of Cabinda, FLEC would simply disappear.

That’s probably what Alex Ferguson is thinking, anyway.

* Image from BBC Website.

Haye Rises To The Top

2009-11-08T09:32:00.000Z

I managed to persuade Pam to part with £15 last night and we watched the World Heavyweight fight between brash cocky David Haye, and freakish ubermensch Nikolay Valuev.

The trade off was that I had to cook dinner – an immaculate stuffed mushroom in white wine sauce, thanks for asking – but the pressure was still on for Sky to deliver value for money on the arrangement.

As the show started, it seemed that most of the subscription money had gone into putting the crew into a series of ill-fitting dinner jackets. Uniformly dressed and adorned with ubiquitous poppies, the only hint of rebellion was commentator Ian Darke’s rakish red bow-tie, although the effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact his chin was hanging preciptously across it.

After a bit of perfunctory hype, we went to the undercard.

First up was George Groves – a young man with the sort of old-fashioned name you'd expect to see on a cenotaph. This was clearly recorded earlier in the evening and both fans enjoyed watching the angry little ginger man knock a gormless Slav around the ring for eight rounds. He looked really fast, and could be an interesting one for the future.

We reverted to more pre-fight hype, and listened to Haye’s increasingly shrill protestations of superiority. He and his team all appearing on camera in Sky Box Office t-shirts and hats. Haye loves the game and is a promoter’s dream.

The voice of Valuev, although his words came through a translator, sounds like Slavic whalesong.
The pundits were split towards the big Russian. Nicky Piper, whose head is perfectly shperical – like a bewigged football – was convinced that Haye wouldn’t be able to get near Valuev. Glenn McCrory, whose Sunderland slur might be the result of a twenty year boxing career, or, you know, being from Sunderland, was equally sure that it would be a points voctory for the champion.

Only Johnny Nelson put his money on Haye. Nelson is surely the most earnest man in sport. He could read out his shopping list and you'd get your wallet out.

There is a pre-fight weight difference of seven stones between the two fighters – can that have ever happened before? The Nicaraguan World Minimumweight Champion, Roman Gonzalez only weighs seven and a half!

Next on the undercard was German Edmund Gerber vs New Yorker Shaun McClean. The commentary team struggled as they started. "They're both wearing black shorts. McClean has red trim and Gerber has silver." It would of course been a lot easier to say that the American was black, but apparently the shorts are the way to go.

When the main event was ready to go, they revealed the king of the ringmasters, Michael Buffer. Only the best for this show – if you don’t know boxing, you might not recognise Buffer’s name. But you would recognise his voice, particularly as he labours towards his catchphrase, “Let’s get ready to rumbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!” I must admit this is getting a bit old now, but you can’t fight tradition.

Haye, with his freshly done corn rolls looking tight enough to slice baco, came out to, "Ain't no Stopping Us Now" and a cacophony of boos.

Next up was Valuev and, despite the fact I was expecting him to come out Darth Vader's theme, he actually had a live German metal band seranading him to the ring. With a normal human baseball cap perched on his gargantuan noggin, he led his oompa-lumpa trainer into the ring with some poor flunky holding up his belt, desparately trying to make himself seen.

Next were the respective National Anthems, and, although German fans wouldn't be so rude as to boo our anthem, our drunken fans managed to pay it ill respect by shouting it at the top of their voices. The Russian anthem seemed to bemuse everyone.

As we were watching this live, I had to suffer literally dozens of adverts. Since the advent of Sky Plus – a day we refer to in our house as “the arrival,” I don't normally watch adverts. In fact, this is probably the first thing I've watched live for three years.

The adverts were an object lesson into the demographic group into which I seemed to have been placed: poker websites, Carling, a ridiculous computer game that looked like a cross between Die Hard and Heartbreak Ridge with a hip hop soundtrack, and cars, and cars, and cars.

As they waited for the flunkeys to leave the ring, Haye pranced around the ring looking fabulous. Unusually for a Heavyweight, he looked cut with a scalpel – al muscle definition and casual physicality.

In contrast, Valuev stood motionless like a mountain of flesh. As the action started, I made notes at the end of each round and tried to call the round winner…

1. At the end of the first round, the oompa lumpa was eye to eye with Valuev on the stool. Very cagey. Too close to call.

2. This is not rivetting but Haye is being very disciplined. That's what's needed. Got gloves on the big man. Haye.

3. Chess in the ring. Caught him a couple of time. Haye.

4. Valuev is backing him into corners and cutitng him off. Haye's standoffish attitude won't impress the judges. Valuev.

5. Round to Valuev on account of a late combination that hurt Haye. Haye also landed a couple. He's done a lot more running around than Valuev. Valuev.

6. Haye caught him a canny left hook. It did nothing. Struggling to see how Haye can win this fight. KO seems unlikely and he's not done enough to win these rounds. Too close to call.

7. Valuev shook his head. Good sign. Can't see Haye winning this on pts. Needs a knockout. Rattled him for first time. Valuev.

8. Valuev is blowing and missing. Haye got a spring in his stride. Haye.

9. First clinch. Ref finally earned his money. Haye landed a couple. Valuev's face has marks. Haye's becoming more aggressive. Stamina's holding up. Haye.

10. More open. Haye dragging Valuev around. But as the fight opens up, Haye is opening himself up and getting caught. Valuev.

11. Coming together more but no-one is landing a good punch. Too close to call.

12. It all came alive in the last minute. Haye actually wobbled the big man. Why didn't he do that earlier? Haye.

I had Haye 5-4 with three rounds in the balance. I was not convinced he'd done enough, and Jim Watt in commentary was even more pessimistic. Haye, however, leapt onto the ropes, arms aloft and claiming the fight.

What the hell do we know, the judges gave a close majority verdict to Haye, with one judge calling it even, and the others scoring it 8-4 to Haye.

So he’s the World Heavyweight Champion and, in a world of massive Eastern Bloc stars, and no crdible American alternatives, he is going to be a massive star. The Americans will be all over him. He’s got the mouth and the personality to transform Heavyweight boxing and be the biggest name since Tyson. Until tonight there was still doubt over whether he had the talent to match the hype, but a disciplined performance showed he has more than one string to his bow.

What's Next For Blair?

2009-10-26T20:39:00.001Z

The British political world is split down the middle as the rumours fly around Europe that former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to be nominated as the next Doctor Who.

The long-running family series has undergone something of a renaissance in recent years with Christopher Ecclestone and David Tennant filling the title role.

Blair, 56, has struggled to find a role on the world stage since he left Downing Street in 2007. As Middle East envoy for the Quartet of America, Russia, the UN and the EU, he has struggled to make an impact on the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

It is thought that an announcement on any decision will be delayed until after the International Climate Conference in Copenhagen next month, although the other mooted candidates for the role, former French Presidential Candidate Segolene Royal, and former Full Monty star Mark Addy have privately distanced themselves. Friends of Addy last night told The Steam Engine, "Doctor Who is an institution for which Mark holds the utmost respect, but he doesn't feel the time is right for him to take on this responsibility at this time."

High on Blair's agenda will be the ongoing struggle to accommodate Billy Piper's increasingly tenuous character, whilst working to create stability after the Catherine Tate fiasco.

Tony Blair was today unavailable for comment.

Lovely Nando

2009-09-27T16:43:00.003+01:00

What is going on with my mancrush on Fernando Torres? I did say I was taking a season away from football this year to focus on other projects, but he's like an addiction - a dirty, filthy, shameful addiction.

It doesn't help that the guy is just so damned good at playing football. Yesterday, he contributed a hat-trick to Liverpool's brutalising of Hull.

His first goal came from a sidestep that put two defenders on their bums, followed by a precise left-foot shot.

Next was a darting run onto a Benayoun through ball before taking the ball past Songko, cutting inside past keeper Myhill then resisting the close attention of two other defenders before calmly side-footing the ball home.

His third came from a powerful surging run into the box. Instead of slamming the ball at goal, he carefully took a moment to put Songko on his arse again before shooting through another defender's legs to complete his hat-trick.

Benitez took him off in short order to protect his star striker. Presumably the lovely Nando needs extra time in the changing room to administer his skin regime and wash his hair, so it was good of Benitez to accommodate him.

Liverpool ended up scoring three more so it's not true to say that they are a one man team - they have Steven Gerrard too. But I wouldn't touch him with yours.

The Great Leveller

2009-09-20T20:46:00.000+01:00

West Ham defender Calum Davenport this weekend released his first statement since the horrendous attack that left him in intensive care. His sister’s boyfriend stabbed him repeatedly in the legs leaving him bleeding and unconscious, with his football career in serious jeopardy.

After thanking fans for their messages of support, and then the medical staff who have helped his recovery, Davenport added, “I would also like to thank anyone who has ever donated blood, as you probably saved my life. I would like to encourage everyone to give blood.”

Davenport is a wealthy Premiership footballer with access to the best healthcare facilities money can buy. But all the money in the world is as nothing without blood.

Find out your nearest session at www.blood.co.uk and give blood this week.

Belgian Grand Prix

2009-08-31T11:41:00.002+01:00

After the streets of Valencia hosted their second Grand Prix, there was no time for respite before the gaggle moved up to a good old fashioned track with a great pedigree.

Spa-Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest is a hilly and challenging course, with a deep ingrained sense of history. Many drivers past and present spent the weekend eulogising it as their favourite circuit, and the undulating Eau Rouge section taken at maximum speed was exciting enough to give the viewer an adrenalin rush, just from the on-board camera.

Former winner David Coulthard was wearing a very dapper jacket in the paddock whilst Jake indulged him, allowing him once again to reflect on past glories. The coverage was no more than four minutes old when Eddie Jordan was given his grumpy head to dismiss McLaren’s investment in computer strategy as a complete waste of time. “If you want to save money, get rid of them.”

Luca Badoer’s antics last week had led to a general feeling of pity from the rest of the Formula One world. In qualifying, he was ridiculed by the commentary team for taking his foot off the accelerator on his way up the Eau Rouge. He then secured what is becoming a customary twentieth spot on the grid before spinning off the track on his in-lap and smacking his rear end into the barriers.

The rumour is that Giancarlo Fisichella will be rescued from Force India and parachuted into the Ferrari team before the next race. If that’s true, then it’s a pretty strong indicator that Kimi Raikkonen is on his way out of the team at the end of this season, with Fisichella partnering the recovered Felipe Massa.

Fisichella was questioned before practice, but under lukewarm questioning from Jake and Eddie, he refused to confirm anything, although he was easily coaxed into saying that driving for Ferrari was a childhood dream.

As if to throw down the challenge to the Italian team, Fisichella finished top of the pile during qualifying. Force India have not threatened the front row all season but Fisi was inspired, and Ferrari will have taken note as they watched Badoer’s car being lifted from the track.

Like Valencia, the grid line-up was peculiar. Bearing very little resemblance to the World Championship standings, the first shock was the premature departure of both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. They qualified twelfth and fourteenth respectively. Spurning their opportunity to maximise, the Red Bull drivers also struggled, with Vettel and Webber qualifying eighth and ninth.

Behind Fisichella, the top slots were taken by other lesser lights of the paddock. Trulli’s Toyota was third, whilst BMW had a successful session with Heidfeld and Kubica finishing third and fifth. The only championship contender near the front was Rubens Barrichello who qualified fourth and would have slept well on Saturday night, confident that he would further eat into his team mate’s lead.

Since I rekindled my interest in F1 this year, I've remained puzzled about the various tyre choices available to the teams. It's evidently crucial to the relative performance of the cars, but my knowledge was poor.

As if directly addressing my confusion, David Coulthard voiced a charming little VT package underscored with some whimsical guitar music and punctuated by a sequence of computer generated tyres bouncing down the Spa track.
The relative merits were explained of the four different types of slicks, the intermediates and the wets. I now have a better knowledge, but am still mystified as to why it really needs to be so complex.

When we moved on to the grid walk, Martin Brundle seemed somehow subdued. Last week in Valencia, he had ostentatiously elbowed a female Australian journalist aside in his quest for an interview with Timo Glock. I suspect he had received a slapped wrist because he was much more restrained, although Trulli, Heidfeld and Barrichello all gave him some time. This despite the fact he was wearing a black leather jacket which I suspect he won during his time in sports cars in the early nineties.

As the race started, the first lap was a complete disaster for Brawn. Barrichello's anti-stall kicked in at the start line, with Raikkonen screaming past him. By the time they exited turn one, Barrichello was last, and Raikkonen was second, chasing Fisichella hard.

At turn four, with the traffic still very tight, Sebastian Grosjean bumped the back of Jenson Button, both spun off the track, and subsequently took out Lewis Hamilton and Jaime Alguersuari. With the World Champion and the Championship leader out of the race, the safety car came out and everyone took a breath.

As soon as the safety car pulled off, Raikkonen snatched the lead from Fisichella - his probable team mate in the next race – as Barrichello started a charge through the field, overtaking Raikkonen’s current team mate, the hapless Luca Badoer.

The pattern of the race at the front end remained fairly static with Raikkonen just ahead of Fisichella. The Force India gave the appearance of being faster than the Ferrari, but Raikkonen’s KERS meant that Fisi just couldn’t get past him. Eventually, the Finn won his first race since he last gave a damn, and Fisichella came in a couple of seconds behind him.

The smart money is on them being team mates by the time they line up for the next qualifying session at Monza in a fortnight.

Vettel managed to drag himself up to third place, but couldn’t overtake Rubens Barrichello for second place in the championship table. The Brazilian rescued seventh place and two valuable points from his disastrous start.

European Grand Prix

2009-08-23T16:46:00.004+01:00

One tiny muscle. The muscle that connects the skull to the top vertebra. Michael Schumacher damaged this muscle in February whilst testing a motorcycle. Although a relatively small component of his bionic body, this pull was enough to prevent him participating in Valencia.

In the press conference in which he announced his inability to take part, he was genuinely and visibly upset. “I am in one of my toughest moments I have faced in my career. For a moment, I felt like I was back alive. And now I have to cancel all this.” Heartbreaking really.

What’s more heartbreaking is that the poor sod had to go back to his day job, and spent the race showing Eric Clapton around the Ferrari garage.

Instead of Schumacher, Ferrari replaced the injured Felipe Massa with another old stager, Luca Badoer. He is a Ferrari test driver but actually retired from racing in 1999! He was obviously second choice, and he didn’t sound too optimistic about his prospects, making apologetic noises, and promising to do his best.

In the first qualifying session, Badoer finished twentieth, slower even than the Force India cars. There was some initial sympathy from Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle but no such kid gloves from David Coulthard, who described his performance as, “simply not good enough.”

After failing miserably, and finishing a second and a half behind Alguersuari in nineteenth, he seemed pretty resigned to his status as makeweight. He said that he was just aiming to finish the race.

On the track, the temperature was extremely high, with Eddie Jordan grumbling about it being hotter than Bahrain, but Jenson Button was dancing around in his ice vest. The Brawn problem had been all about grip, and we have been told for several races that hot temperatures are essential for the Brawn tyres to do a good job.

Sebastian Vettel had sustained an engine failure in Saturday morning practice, meaning that the Red Bull team were frantically replacing it as qualifying started. The rules say that a driver can only use eight engines throughout the season, and Vettel is now onto his sixth. I’m not entirely sure what happens if the eight engines are all used – I would imagine the young German has cut out the floor of the cockpit and run along in the manner of Fred Flintstone.

The qualification ended up as a triumph for McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton following up his win in Budapest with a pole position, and Heike Kovalainen joining him on the front row.

At the start of the race, the McLarens got away well and held the first two positions. Jenson Button had a disastrous first lap, dropping to eighth, whilst the best performer was Luca Badoer, who made up six places during lap one.

In the commentary box, there was a little revising of opinion on Badoer’s abilities, but he managed to spin off the track on lap three so Brundle could go back to canning him. In fairness to Badoer, he did manage to finish the Grand Prix, but not before he had a stop-start penalty for crossing the white line exiting the pits, overshot another corner, and being lapped.

At the front, Lewis Hamilton took off from the front of the grid, and Kovalainen managed to keep Barrichello at bay. At the first round of pit stops, Barrichello leapfrogged into second place, and attacked Hamilton hard. Getting to within four seconds before the second round of stops, the McLaren team virtually handed the race to Barrichello by fumbling the stop. As Hamilton came to a halt, the mechanics didn’t have the tyres ready. Scrambling them out of the garage and out of their covers, the mechanics slowly replaced the tyres as Hamilton sat watching the race disappear.

After his corresponding stop, Barrichello came out four seconds ahead of Hamilton, and didn’t look back. Having threatened all season to win a race, he finally claimed his first Grand Prix victory since China 2004.

Ross Brawn had repeatedly said that conditions would suit the Brawn cars, and that made it even more of a shame that Jenson Button did so badly. Having made a poor start, he spent most of the 57 laps staring at the back of Mark Webber’s car, unable to get past, and only got ahead after the second round of pit stops. By that time, he was way off the pace, and could only finish seventh.

Kimi Raikkonen, whose mid-season rallying adventure ended with his car rolling into a Finnish ditch, came in third, conspicuously ahead of his aged team mate Badoer.

Sebastian Vettel was seriously let down this weekend by his equipment. Having lost an engine in practice, he dropped out of contention when his first pit stop had to be repeated due to a faulty fuel nozzle. Racing outside the top ten as a result, his race finished in a puff of blue smoke as yet another engine failed.

With Webber finishing ninth, it was a puzzling day for all the top title contenders. Barrichello’s win, coupled with the abject failure of his team mate and their rivals, puts him right back into contention.

Have a Coke, Have a Smile

2009-08-07T21:14:00.002+01:00

Tonight, I had to begin my acclimatisation. As the first league game of the season kicked off on Sky Sports, I had to finally accept the fact that I support a club that is in the Coca Cola Championship. I’m a Newcastle fan, and Pam is a Middlesbrough fan, so as you can imagine last May was a fun time in our household as we both had to come to terms with the fact our teams were hopeless.

The fact that I had put a fiver on Boro to go down at 16-1 at the start of the season was scant consolation as I watched the burning wreckage of Newcastle follow them down on the final day of the season.

The big Championship kick off is tomorrow afternoon but Sky never knowingly accept an existing schedule and have pulled the Middlesbrough – Sheffield United tie forward a day in order to boost their Friday evening ratings. It’s nothing new for Sky to be showing Friday evening Championship games, but it is new to me.

Having become used to, and comfortable with, the Sky Sports mega-hype that surrounds even the most meaningless Premiership tie, I was a bit disappointed that Andy Gray couldn’t even be bothered to turn up. Presumably he’s still on holiday with Richard Keys, topping up the tan and reading his Rothmans.

Instead, we were welcomed to the 2009-10 season by some anonymous Sky Sports Newsreader over the theme tune of “You’ve Got The Love” by Candi Staton. Tragically, he was joined on the gantry by Championship standard “experts” Neil Warnock, Kevin Phillips and Peter Beagrie. Peter Beagrie! Imagine being in a league so crap that Peter Beagrie is considered an adequate pundit.

Neil Warnock is a pleasingly objectionable presence on any panel, but Kevin Phillips (depressingly, once again a Premiership striker this season) is possibly the most boring man in football. His voice is very similar to that of David Beckham, but he makes Becks look more flamboyant than The Great Soprendo. There was a point at half time where he launched into a soliloquy about Leroy Lita’s pace, and I actually lapsed into a coma. I only came round when Pam tried to steal my beer. Beagrie is actually the definition of the perfect Sky pundit – he only talks in tabloid headlines, tonight for example he constantly referred to the away team as “Sheff Yoo”

A pre-recorded interview with Boro manager Gareth Southgate before the match was unnerving in its intensity. It was a couple of minutes before I realised why. He was talking direct to camera rather than to the usual off-camera interviewer. Have Sky cut back by getting rid of Geoff Shreeves and implementing a Diary Room style interview?

Perhaps Southgate insists on this as part of his contract with the club. He does have a big nose but it is a bit self-conscious of him demanding to be filmed exclusively from this head-on angle

As the game started, Southgate emerged pitchside in his Italian suit and club tie, but the Sheffield United manager, Kevin Blackwell, in his cheap nylon Blades training top, was almost taunting him. This is how we do it down here, Pinocchio.

As the action progressed, commentated on by some bloke called Bill Leslie, ably assisted by Don Goodman, the attention inevitably strayed to the Premiership. Cutting away to the lurking figure of Martin O’Neill in the stands, there was much speculation over which players he had come to see. With the transfer window still yawning, and any half-decent players still vulnerable to poaching, it is going to be a very long season.

The Return of The King

2009-07-31T14:32:00.003+01:00

I’ve been blogging on Formula One throughout the season this year. Having come back to F1 after an absence of ten or fifteen years, I’ve enjoyed the racing a great deal. Although it’s fair to say I’ve probably enjoyed the BBC’s coverage just as much. I mock Jake, DC and Eddie, and I ridicule Brundle because I think it’s pretty funny. But secretly, I like what they do.

Mostly though, this year has been a voyage of discovery into the labyrinthine politics and behind-the-scenes shenanigans. It’s this that has kept me fascinated me throughout the last few months.

I had made a formatting decision early on that I would only blog on the subject during Grand Prix weekends, folding in any appropriate fun and games that had happened since the last race, and summarising them neatly before moving on to the day’s events. Unfortunately, it was getting to the point that I would take up my laptop to describe a qualifying session, and knock out a thousand words on Max Mosley and KERS before they’d even started their engines.

So this week I am faced with the problem that there is just so much going on in the world of Formula One, and there are three and a half weeks till the next race. With poor old Felipe Massa still in intensive care, and BMW on their bike, I was already making notes for the next race weekend.

This week though, I simply have to break with my self-imposed tradition and write about the news early. This week, Michael Schumacher came out of retirement.

Firstly, let’s talk about Felipe Massa. After his brush with Rubens Barrichello’s rear suspension last week, he is now out of intensive care and, in the long tradition of medical bulletins, he is reported to be “cracking jokes.” Despite his improving condition, he is to remain in Budapest for the time being. His Brazilian doctor Dino Altmann said that Massa “looks like a boxer,” but the fact the doctor is flying out of Hungary today indicates that Massa is out of danger.

So, with Massa in one piece but unlikely to make the grid for Valencia in three weeks’ time, Ferrari needed a short term replacement to drive their car. I imagine the board meeting where they discussed this was very interesting. Chief engineers and team managers all scratching their heads and tossing around the names of test drivers. In the corner is the glowering “technical adviser,” still very much on the payroll. He coughs gently and silence falls. All heads turn to him.

“Gentlemen. If I might make a suggestion…”

So Schumi is back behind the wheel. The world is sitting up and taking notice. Will he still have it? Will he be struggle with the technology which has advanced so much while he has been away? He probably doesn’t even know what KERS stands for. Actually, nobody else does either.

Is this a step too far for an old champion? He is almost universally acknowledged as the best driver to ever sit in a Formula One car, but I suppose four years in the paddock has to make even the best rusty.

It’s not as dangerous as in boxing – seeing Evander Holyfield coming out of retirement again to take on the enormous Nikolay Valuev was not just sad, but also dangerous. Fortunately, the seven foot monster is a hapless gorilla rather than a boxer, so Holyfield survived to start his latest retirement.

Although F1 is a lot safer these days, Massa’s accident, and Alonso’s flying tyre in Budapest have proved that it is still a contact sport. You have to feel that Schumacher will be okay though – he is so icy cool that he’ll probably end up winning the bloody race.

In the back of my mind, there is the concern that he is pretty much the reason I stopped watching F1 all those years ago. However, it was not him so much as his uncompromising domination of the sport. Even if he were to return to that metronomic form for the next couple of races, it can only ever be a temporary aberration to the status quo, and so I’ve got to appreciate the drama.

Whilst on the subject of Fernando Alonso’s missing wheel, the Renault team have been suspended from the European Grand Prix as a punishment for allowing him out of the pits without securing his the wheel-nut. They are appealing, and the likelihood is they’ll end up with a fine or a points deduction.

Still, a hefty Bridgestone bouncing down the track at 100mph is no laughing matter and there ought to be a significant punishment, although in my heart of hearts, I feel sorry for the poor mechanic who missed his mark and didn’t quite get his spanner in place.

Related Articles:
Felipe Massa’s Accident – The Hungarian Grand Prix, 26th July 2009

Athletic Endeavour

2009-07-30T17:41:00.003+01:00

In my recent fevered state, I’ve been doing a lot of laying on the sofa with a blanket pulled up to my nose. Barely able to move my calcified limbs, I have harnessed the power of Sky Plus, and spent most of the day watching sport.

I’ve been closely following the World Swimming Championships, and the heated debate over polyurethane outfits – good for breaking world records, bad for grumpy old former world record holders in the studio. So bored have I been, that I have sat through the interminable morning heats. In, say, the Men’s 200m Freestyle, there are thirteen heats, the last three of which are seeded, meaning that, in practical terms, the qualifiers will come exclusively from those heats. The ten previous heats, therefore, are almost laughable. Until you have seen the national champions of Mauritius and Burkina Faso go head to head, you have not know futility.

More interesting, though, was the athletics from Monaco on Eurosport last night. As with any sporting event in the principality, there were frequent shots of the royal family enjoying the action from their gilded box; and the more recent phenomenon of Jenson Button’s dad. The F1 driver lives in Monte Carlo so had turned up to watch a bit of real sport, and right beside him, there was his ubiquitous old man, revelling in the usual permatan and pink shirt – untucked and unbuttoned to the navel.

Eurosport’s coverage of just about anything is woefully amateurish when compared to that of the better-funded broadcasters, but they often cover events that even Sky wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. For example, they are the only place to go for swimming heats, any cycling event that is not the Olympics, or North American Timbersports (seriously, don’t knock it till you’ve seen it.) However, it was a surprise that they were the only network that could be bothered to cover a major Athletics Grand Prix meeting.

The Eurosport modus operandi is to carry live feed from a host broadcaster, and to grab two relatively sober and articulate people from each country, put them in a booth in their respective homeland, and ask them to commentate on what they are seeing. The result can sometimes be ham fisted when you realise that the commentators has no additional information to you the viewer, and is basically watching the same feed that you are.

Their amateurish state was best summed up during the Tour de France, when viewers were invited to email the commentary team. The email address given out was something like cyclingeurosport@yahoo.com. I can imagine one of the commentary lads getting on Yahoo and setting it up for themselves that morning, rather than having anything as professional as a domain name.

Back to athletics, and one of the advantages of Eurosport is that, because they don’t have any presenters on-site, they actually cover the field events. This may sound silly but think about the last BBC-covered athletics meeting you saw. After each race they cut back up to the stands to listen to what that grinning gobshite Colin Jackson has to say about it, then cut to a pre-recorded interview with yet another British contender. Only when the next race is about to go do they cut back to the action.

On Eurosport they don’t have that dubious luxury, and so the cameras stay on the field events. If you’ve ever attended an athletics meeting in the flesh, you’ll know that there is always something going on in the arena. I went to last year’s Olympic Trials and had a great time, even without Brendan Foster mispronouncing names and bemoaning the state of British men’s middle distance running.

So, from Monaco, I enjoyed the men’s Pole Vault and a spectacular women’s High Jump. Neither event would have been carried live by the BBC, because neither involved a British person. The High Jump in particular was a high quality head to head between Blanka Vlasic and Ariane Friedrich.

Vlasic is a kind of weird-looking Amazon of a woman, but really knows how to play a crowd, and can jump over a plastic bar better than anybody else. Believe it or not, I used to be quite the high jumper in my youth – I was a sixteen-year-old North of England Schools Champion as it happens.

I know you are probably thinking I’m a bit short and stocky (alright, fat) to be much of a high jumper, and you’d be right, if a little insensitive. But I reached the full majesty of my five foot nine at an early age and, for a few all too brief pubescent years, towered above my contemporaries. Also, my relationship with the pie and the pint were not as abusive back then, so my slender build remained.

Actually, what I am thinking right now, is that I can’t believe I’ve written over 160 blogs and not yet managed to brag about my schoolboy athletics medals.

I eventually gave up the High Jump as I found it to be too much of an existential challenge. After all, there may be something inspirational about continually raising the bar, challenging yourself even further with every leap. But even when I won competitions, the bar would be inexorably raised to a point beyond my ability. Every competition therefore ended in failure. Three times.

I started to lose interest in the element of competition, the other jumpers were of no consequence to me, only the inevitable failure that would signify the end of my event, and the limit of my endeavour. No matter how successful I was in the early rounds, the end loomed, hanging over me and weighing me down.

I don’t know. Maybe I was reading too much into it. But I was an odd kid.

Hapless Footballers Number 3 – Zlatan Ibrahimovic

2009-07-29T14:22:00.003+01:00

This week, Barcelona completed their protracted purchase of Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Internazionale. The extraordinary cost of getting their man was £40m cash, Samuel Eto’o, and a year’s loan of Alex Hleb, after which time they have an £8.6m purchase option.

This is an enormous amount to pay for a man who I have never ever seen have a good game. I should clarify here, I am not really arguing that Ibrahimovic is rubbish – he can’t be – but that in my admittedly limited experience, he is all mouth and no boots.

There is a serious point here because although I will freely admit I’m hardly a connoisseur of Serie A games, where Ibrahimovic appears to excel, I do watch a lot of Champions’ League football. In the last five or six years, I have not once seen him do anything of any note. Is it then appropriate to tar him with the same brush that so often used to stick to his new Barca teammate Thierry Henry? That he is not a “big game player.”

Ibrahimovic had been in Italy since 2004, when he moved to Juventus. He had two seasons there which, at least initially, brought two league titles. When the Calciopoli bribery scandal came to light, Juve were stripped of their last two titles and relegated to the second division. Zlatan jumped ship and moved to Internazionale, recently crowned champions by default.

In his three years at Inter, he has won three titles, was named Footballer of the Year in 2008, and he won the Italian Golden Loafer last season. So Ibrahimovic is clearly not complete knickers – Roberto Mancini, Jose Mourinho, and now Pep Guardiola have placed him at the spearhead of their attacks.

However, Eto’o was also top domestic scorer last year in a much better league, and has consistently been the most successful centre-forward in Spain for the last six or seven years. It is extraordinary that Barca not only rate Ibrahimovic as better than Eto’o, but £40m better.

Eto’o only had one year remaining on his contract, and has agitated for a move previously, so perhaps Barca were happy to cut their losses and move on to a new pivot for their incomparable attack. Not averse to the self-eulogy, Eto’o said, “I made history at Barcelona but that chapter is over.”

Ibrahimovic also has a legendary self-regard. This is no bad thing, as Eric Cantona proved. You have to admire a man who once said in a post-match interview, “there is only one Zlatan.”

He is very popular in Sweden, and well regarded in Italy, but his admirers appear to be restricted to these countries (and Barcelona). If he can prove his class in Spain, I’ll gladly eat my words, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s hapless.

Related Articles:
Hapless Footballers
2. Dimitar Berbatov. 28th May 2009
1. Nicklas Bendtner. 8th May 2009

Hungarian Grand Prix

2009-07-26T14:53:00.001+01:00

Twenty four hours after qualifying, the grid was a little preoccupied with Felipe Massa’s injury. As the session finished yesterday, I was under the impression he was just a little shaken, but in truth, the outcome was worse than first thought. It was, however, far far better than it could have been.

As the drivers assembled on the grid, Massa was still in Intensive Care at a local hospital. The spring which fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car had hit Massa’s helmet above the left eye at around 120mph. The helmet stayed intact but the visor crumbled and Massa had a cut above his left eye, “bone damage” to the skull, and “brain concussion.”

With that in mind, there was a slightly sober feel to the grid as the party started. For his grid walk, Martin Brundle had Eddie Jordan alongside him. The dynamic didn’t really work as Jordan was far too busy talking to ask any questions. Brundle eventually gave up being polite and walked off, microphone in hand, leaving Jordan trailing behind him, still talking.

At the end of yesterday’s qualifying session, Massa’s accident had distracted from the fact that the timing system had gone down leading to the drivers scratching their heads and exchanging times to establish the pecking order. By the time the official results were announced, Mark Webber had to be pulled out of the shower to attend a press conference.

Speaking of Webber, after his first Grand Prix victory in Germany last time, the BBC had pre-recorded a film which featured Jake Humphrey cycling in the woods with Mark Webber. Bearing in mind that this is how he smashed up his leg over the winter, the beeb were taking a bit of a risk. I had visions of Humphrey ploughing into Webber’s bike and taking them both over a precipice. If it happened, they cut it out.

With the grid having such a diverse range of cars at the front, the start was crucial, and Alonso followed up his victory in qualifying with a terrific start. Behind him, though, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton battled through the first two corners to take up the chase. Sebastian Vettel, sitting on the front row on the grid, was seventh after the first two turns – a poor start followed by a bump in the crowd from Raikkonen on the first corner.

After a very fast first few laps, the lighter Alonso started to lose pace. Lewis Hamilton, who had overtaken Webber to seize second, was scorching towards him. On a short strategy, Alonso came in before Hamilton could catch him. Unfortunately, replays showed that the hapless mechanic on the right front tyre had not properly tightened the wheelnut. As Alonso went out, his wheel already looked wobbly, and within a minute, his tyre was bouncing off down the track.

A few laps later, Vettel seemed to suffer a similar problem to Barrichello’s in qualifying, something in his rear suspension failing. Afterwards, he would blame it on the bump from Raikkonen at the start. Whatever caused it, a pit stop failed to put it right and, within twenty laps, the two front row starters were out of the race.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton had snatched the lead after Alonso’s retirement and held it firmly. His first grand prix win since last year demonstrated that the changes McLaren made to their car had been very effective. The near-hysterical clip of his reaction on the in-car radio said everything about how pleased he was.

It was unexpected but it was no fluke. He was consistently the fastest driver on the course, the pit-stops worked perfectly, and he was never under any pressure.

Likewise, Brawn’s deteriorating performance can no longer be put down to misfortune. He may be leading the Championship, but Jenson Button only finished seventh, and Rubens Barrichello scuttled in tenth. It worked in their favour today that Hamilton and Raikkonen as it kept Mark Webber in third. The threat from Red Bull is very real and, with seven races still to go, this championship is far from over.

Related Articles:
Qualifying – Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying, 25th July 2009.
Last Grand Prix – German Grand Prix, 12th July 2009.

Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying

2009-07-25T15:06:00.002+01:00

There was a peculiar choice of features from the BBC before qualifying as they first devoted an extraordinary amount of airtime to Jarno Trulli’s charity, then showed us what looked like an expensively made film from Finland.

Trulli’s noble endeavour to raise money for the victims of the horrendous earthquake in his home region of Abruzzo is worthy of praise, and he has clearly been doing some great work to raise funds, and bring hope to the people still living in tented villages. However, the fifteen minute feature seemed a little excessive – I wonder how hard he had to lobby the BBC to get that sort of exposure.

Next up was a film showing Heike Kovalainen riding his skidoo across the snowy wastes of his native Finland. Then we cut to a Nordic log cabin and Jonathan Legard interviewing the driver around a wood fire. It all seemed a little over the top to discover that the young fella was committed to winning and focused on one race at a time.

As we returned to Hungary, where there’s a race happening this weekend, the team were in the Red Bull garage. David Coulthard has clearly been taking lessons from Martin Brundle, and took a microphone around the garage, poking it under the noses of the startled backroom team.

Of course, he was driving for that team less than a year ago, and he is still on the Red Bull payroll as a consultant – whatever that means – so he has amazing access. Still it was odd that, ten minutes before the first qualifying session started, the team were happy for him to wander around distracting him.

The Hungaroring near Budapest was described this week by Murray Walker as “Monaco without the houses.” This is an elegant way of saying it’s bloody impossible to overtake, thus making qualifying more crucial than usual.

In the first qualifying session, the cars danced around the track like Kovalainen skidoo on a frozen lake. Grip was clearly an issue and several drivers found themselves going wide on corners.

Since the last race, Torro Rosso carried through on their threat to sack Sebastian Bourdais, bringing in nineteen-year-old Jaime Alguersuari. Extraordinarily, due to the ban on in-season testing, he had never driven a Formula One car before today. The other drivers muttered that it was unsafe to have him thrown straight into a Grand Prix. I suspect they are just bitter at Alguersuari’s direct route to success – like veteran stand-up comics slogging off young comedians with a Channel 4 series because they haven’t “played the clubs.”

Torro Rosso get their new boy out early so he could drive himself into some kind of comfort. Unfortunately, he was tracking only eighteenth in qualifying when he went out for a second run. Moments later, the car was rolling to a halt with an apparent mechanical fault, bringing out the yellow flag, and condemning Alguersuari to the back row in his first Grand Prix – about the same as Bourdais. But I’m sure he’ll improve.

Incidentally, poor old Bourdais is taking legal action against the team for firing him. I don’t envy him a court case where his former employers try to legally prove he is incompetent. That’s not going to be a fun few days is it?

The whispers gathering around the Renault team was that Nelson Piquet could be next to get the boot. This weekend, he has been given all the upgrades that his teammate Fernando Alonso has had for several races, but the implied arrangement was that he needed to use them to perform or he would be out.

He came storming through the first session, out-qualifying Alonso and finishing fifth. However, in the second session, normal service was resumed, Piquet finishing fifteenth, where he will start the race. Flavio Briatore, his team boss, has previously fired drivers mid-season, and Piquet will need a great race tomorrow if he wants to avoid signing on next week.

With the last couple of races seeing Red Bull overhauling Brawn’s early-season supremacy, there was a school of thought before this weekend that the higher temperatures in Hungary would lead to Brawn restoring their dominance. However, the evidence of qualifying disproved that notion.

Neither Brawn driver looked particularly comfortable and Rubens Barrichello actually failed to make it into the final qualifying session.

It has been a difficult fortnight for Rubens. After a frustrating race in Germany, where team tactics arguably cost him several places, he reacted angrily (and very publicly) straight after the race. Still in his race gear, and with the anger evident on his face, he told reporters, “It was a good show from the team of how to lose a race. I did all I had to do, I was first to the first corner. They made me lose it.”

Since then, he has apologised to Ross Brawn and the rest of the team, but he is clearly not a man in the zone. As today’s qualifying showed, the difference between success and failure is measured in tenths of a second – if Barrichello is not 100% settled, then his performance will suffer.

There was an ominous period in between the second and third qualifying sessions, as the second had been effectively ended by the yellow flag which followed Felipe Massa driving his car directly into the tyre wall.

He appeared to have driven directly off the track and into the wall with no effort to turn his wheel. The speculation on potential car problems was wild, but the mystery began to unfold when Barrichello came out and explained his lack of performance in Q2 by saying that his rear suspension had felt odd and he had lost grip.

Replays showed that a small metal tube had fallen away from Barrichello’s car, thus slowing him down, but had then bounced up and struck Massa on the side of the helmet, knocking him senseless for a few moments, during which time he left the tarmac and came to an abrupt halt in the tyres.

Massa took no further part in qualifying but, by the end of the session, reports suggested he was nothing worse than shaken up. With him relegated to tenth, and Barrichello even further back, the results of qualifying gave us a diverse grid.

On the front row, Fernando Alonso put the boot into Piquet by winning his first pole since he was world champion. Red Bull maintained their presence at the front with Vettel in second, and Webber in third. Lewis Hamilton recorded his best qualifying position of the season with a fourth place start, and poor old Jenson Button was seventh.

Related Articles:
Last Race – German Grand Prix. 12th July 2009
Last Qualifying – German Grand Prix Qualifying. 11th July 2009

Stubbs Out

2009-07-19T21:32:00.003+01:00

The biggest transfer news of the Summer so far emerged this week when the BBC revealed that third string presenter Ray Stubbs would defect to ESPN Sports.

ESPN have taken over the games for which Setanta held the rights until they imploded last month, and, although they have decades of experience in broadcasting Baseball, American Football and Dodgeball, they are pretty new to Unamerican Football, and so will need to build a team from scratch. Who better to lead it than Stubbsy?

Stubbs has been at the BBC for as long as I can remember and has always filled the gaps left by the holidays and absences of more accomplished presenters. When Gary Lineker takes the week off to go to The Masters every year, Stubbsy gets the call, stepping effortlessly into the Lineker loafers and prompting the Alans to mouth their platitudes.

Being a scouser, he first came on the scene during the Lynam / Rider days when a regional accent invariably exiled a young reporter to Burnden Park or Gigg Lane. When Lineker stepped straight off the pitch and ahead of Stubbs in the pecking order, a lesser man would have walked away for the riches of Sky, but Stubbs persevered.

As the BBC has changed its attitude to those accents in their presenters, Stubbsy was once again bypassed as Brummie Adrian Chiles got the Sunday night MOTD2 gig.

Finally, the advent of the red button lent our man a regular gig in the shape of Score – the BBC’s woefully inferior comparison to Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday. Stubbsy does his best but to go up against the peerless Jeff Stelling is always going to be a thankless task. And the best broadcaster in the world would struggle to wring charismatic chat from Lee Dixon and Garth Crooks.

When Setanta launched its Premiership coverage two years ago, their dream team of Steve McManaman, Les Ferdinand and Tim Sherwood was the stuff of dreams – prompting literally hundreds of fans to sign up to their service.

ESPN have laid their cards firmly on the table with their choice of Stubbs as front man. As they assemble the rest of their team, expect fireworks – Chris Waddle as chief Alan? Graeme Le Saux as pitchside reporter? First division all the way, and not in a good way.

Related Articles:
Collapse of Setanta – Don’t Mess With Murdoch. 10th June 2009

In The City

2009-07-19T09:16:00.002+01:00

After the Kaka shambles in January, you would think that Manchester City would have learned a lesson and been a little lower profile about their transfer activity this year. So far this Summer, however, City have spent several weeks making headlines by being linked with an increasingly preposterous roster of players from across Europe before settling for Premiership stars slightly below the top rank who have followed Robinho to Eastlands, universally claiming that they are excited by “the project.”

In all seriousness, if one of them was just honest with the fans, and said, “Bloody hell, they have offered me double salary, I’d be a fool not to go for it!” I’m sure they’d be respected for it.

To give City’s Arab overlords their due, they have been as good as their word and kept Mark Hughes in the manager’s job. Last season was not an overwhelming success and, despite their protestations that Hughes had not been given a specific target, the money spent last Summer would suggest they were expecting more than a tenth place finish.

Hughes it is, though, who has been given another Summer to spend reckless amounts of money in assembling a squad list to rival the top European clubs.

Last Summer, as Robinho joined Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany and Jo in Manchester, there were whispers that Hughes was not signing the players at all. The theory was that the owners had engaged agents to sweep up the available European talent, and that Hughes was largely unaware of the activity until he showed up to shake hands at the press conference.

I suspect this is a gross overstatement of the reality, and that Hughes was consulted before agents were employed. The idea that Hughes is some bumbling, old-fashioned sheepskin wearing boss, and simply could never have heard of a player like Jo is just insulting.

The January 2009 transfer window betrayed the grip that Mark Hughes had on transfer policy with the two biggest names – Craig Bellamy and Shay Given – indisputably Hughes purchases.

This Summer had started with a similar focus on workmanlike “Hughes players.” The first two signings were Stuart Taylor, signed from Villa as back up for Given, and Roque Santa Cruz – a long time Hughes favourite from his old club Blackburn. To be honest, Santa Cruz is one of those players that I’ve never really seen have a good game, but Hughes knows him better than I do, and has spent over a year trying to sign him, so he can’t be terrible.

Since then, there have been three big name signings, each of them poached from one of our four perennial Champions’ League contenders, and each of them a further statement of intent that, this year, City will be serious contenders.

Firstly was Gareth Barry, signed from Villa but taken from under the nose of Liverpool’s Rafa Benitez, who had been tracking Barry like a bloodhound for two years. Last Summer, Barry had been all but wearing the Liverpool kit until Villa manager Martin O’Neill persuaded him to give Villa another year.

Villa fans of my acquaintance were pleased to see him finally go after all the speculation, but Barry was almost universally condemned as a mercenary in the press.

Next signing through the door was the controversial Carlos Tevez. After his ill-fated spell at West Ham, where his goals kept them in the Premiership but condemned them to years of abuse and litigation after it emerged they had broken Premiership rules by illegally loaning him from Kia Joorabchian’s company, he moved to Manchester United where, in his first season he became a terrace hero, but was then edged out by Alex Ferguson’s inexplicable signing of the hapless Dimitar Berbatov.

This Summer, as Tevez and Manchester United’s complex financial arrangement came to a close, Ferguson was offered first refusal on signing him permanently for £25m. Unfortunately, bewitched by Berbatov’s Slavic eyes and lustrous hair, he refused, and Manchester City have stepped it to offer Tevez a club which will allow him to live in the same cloistered community of pampered footballers, keep his daughter at the same school, and probably give him a better run in the first team.

Finally this week, there was the somewhat surprising signing of Arsenal’s Emmanuel Adebayor. Adebayor has scored a lot of goals for Arsenal, but the general feeling among their fans is that he has been lacking commitment since he was denied a move to Milan last Summer. Rather like Barry, he has left his old club under something of a cloud, and will be very curious to see whether he will recapture his form of 2007-08 for City.

Worryingly for Arsenal fans, Arsene Wenger has made his usual complacent noises at losing one of his top players, saying, “Big clubs lose players. Arsenal have always lost players and continued at the top level.” His insistence that his squad could cope will be worrying for Arsenal fans, who would rather hear about a quality replacement to help them shore up their position in the big four. Of all the top clubs nervously looking over their shoulders at Mark Hughes’ new squad, Arsenal should be most anxious.

We will now see what happens next for City. Last Summer, Robinho was signed with approximately thirty seconds left of the transfer window so, with six weeks to go till the end of this Summer’s sales, don’t be surprised if they buy again.

The other interesting question will be how long Hughes is given if the new season doesn’t start as well as they hope. After last season, the owners really backed Hughes where many more jittery boards would have thrown him overboard for a bigger name. That is to their credit but, if Hughes can’t convert this investment into a consistently high league position, he may well be replaced.

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Big John’s Big C

2009-07-14T17:47:00.001+01:00

Poor old John Hartson has been diagnosed with testicular cancer. And it's the nasty advanced type that's spread to his brain. It sounds very similar to the cancer which very nearly killed Lance Armstrong. To be truthful, the prognosis is not great with this particular ailment: he has a long and painful programme of chemotherapy ahead of him.

There is no truth to the rumour that his doctors have called Eyal Berkovic and asked him to come around and kick the cancer out of Hartson’s head. This is not a therapy with a great track record, but would at least provide a neat sense of circular justice.

Testicular cancer appears to be the curse of the footballer. You never hear about footballers with bowel cancer, or lung cancer – I suppose the days are now gone when footballer would have a fag at half time. Former England international Geoff Thomas contracted leukaemia and has been a tireless campaigner since his recovery, but it seems to be testicular cancer which most often strikes down the footballer.

One famous survivor is Alan Stubbs. He was at Celtic when he was diagnosed and, as the Glasgow footballing community is famous for its even-handed approach to inter-club rivalry, fans were as sympathetic as you might expect.

When he recovered, the usual rib-tickling dressing room banter ended by giving him the predictable nickname Womble Stubbs. Womble, as in, “Stubbsy, has only got one ball (womble).” Genius.

I genuinely wish Hartson the very best recovery and, if he is as single minded as Lance Armstrong, he may even end up captaining Real Madrid to the Champions’ League in a couple of years. Frankly, as a former Wimbledon player, I’m sure he’ll settle for a starting place in the Womble XI.

Fear And Loathing In Astana

2009-07-13T20:34:00.002+01:00

The upper reaches of the Tour de France standings are currently being dominated by the Astana team. Astana is the team of the pre-race favourite and 2007 winner Alberto Contador, of seven-time winner and all round super human Lance Armstrong, of German Andreas Kloden – twice second in previous Tours, and of Levi Leipheimer – another cyclist who has previously stood on the podium in Paris.

Both Kloden and Leipheimer are potential Tour winners with the right team behind them, but Contador was always the team leader, and it was understood that they would have to put aside their ambitions in order to help him win.

But that was before Lance came back.

The main problem is that Lance Armstrong has not been a team player since he recovered from cancer and began to single-mindedly win every race he felt like winning. On his return, the US Postal Team (which later became known by the name of new sponsor Discovery Channel) was built for him, around him, and by him. The directeur sportif (team manager) Johan Bruyneel was Lance’s confidant, and everything was geared around Armstrong.

After Armstrong’s retirement, the old team broke up and everyone went their separate ways, finding their own niche in other teams. Some of his loyal domestiques found themselves leaders in other teams, whilst some simply swapped their loyalty to another contender.

At this point, let me move the story to Kazakhstan, where the fledgling Astana team was being created around Alexandre Vinokourov. Firstly, Astana is the capital of the central Asian nation, and secondly, the most famous man in Kazakhstan is most certainly not Borat, but Vino. The blonde haired, blue eyed rider was one of the most exciting on the circuit in the early part of this decade, with a merciless climbing style, and an ability to sprint of the front of almost any pack. He had raced for the German T-Mobile team, but wanted to create his own team, nurturing Kazakh talent, as well as bringing in some of Europe’s best riders, and challenging for major honours.

He secured the sponsorship of the Kazakhstan government, and, wearing the light blue and yellow of the national flag, the Astana team joined the peloton.

Vino was my favourite rider. Although I admired Lance Armstrong, he is almost impossible to like, and I always enjoyed watching the more adventurous Vinokourov to the metronomic and relentless Armstrong. In 2003, he came third in the Tour; in 2005, after missing 2004 through injury, he came fifth and won a couple of stages; in 2006, he won the Vuelta a Espana.

In 2007, he had won two stages of the Tour before, the morning after his second win, the entire Astana team withdrew after positive blood doping tests.

Cycling has been riddled with doping, and I will gladly defend the sport’s efforts to rid itself of the stigma. The fact that there have been so many bad headlines is testament to the governing body’s determination to find the cheats. But that didn’t make it an less upsetting.

For the first time, I switched off. I didn’t bother to watch the rest of that accursed tour. He wasn’t the only rider that year to get thrown out, but he was the one that hurt the most. Say it ain’t so, Vino.

This brings us back up to date, and to the current Astana team. With the banning of Vinokourov, the management staff, and several other riders, the team was dead on the road. It was resurrected by Armstrong’s old directeur Johan Bruyneel who, looking for a place to call home after the disbanding of the Discovery team, set about building a new squad at Astana.

As you would expect from a man of his pedigree, he built a terrific team which, with Alberto Contador leading the charge won two of last three Grand Tours – Italy and Spain – but the Tour de France eluded them. 2009 was to be the year, with Contador one of the strongest men on the road, and a strong team to ride him to the front.

But that was before Lance came back.

From the moment Armstrong announced he would come out of retirement and link up with Bruyneel once more, there were rumours that Contador was deeply unhappy. He briefed the press so regularly to assert his status as team leader that his insecurity was painful to see.

So far this season, Armstrong has kept quiet and, by virtue of solid but unspectacular performances in the Giro D’Italia and other races, his potential as a threat has diminished. But then last Monday, he was in the break that was created by a freak cross-wind 20km from the finish. Contador was not in the break, and so lost valuable seconds to his rival.

In truth, the margin itself was negligible, and no neutral observer would blame Armstrong for his actions – he had been in the right place at the right time, and he had exploited it. Contador, however, had just as clearly NOT been in the right place and the situation spoke of the older man’s better brain for the game. Armstrong did not help the situation by caustically commenting in post-race interviews that Contador had not been unlucky, but had simply “not been there.”

On Friday, as the riders climbed the mountain into Andorra, Alberto Contador pulled away from the other contenders and established a gap that would eventually by nineteen seconds. Again, the margin itself is not as important as the moral victory. As Contador streaked away, Armstrong did not follow. The question is whether he was being a good team player and allowing his leader to establish a lead whilst marking his rivals from other teams, or whether he was simply not capable of matching his speed.

Either way, he once again showed a lack of tact in post-race interviews when he responded to questions about team spirit by saying, “the honest truth is that there’s a little tension. Alberto is strong and he’s very ambitious.” This is not how any domestique would talk about their team leader. It seems clear that Armstrong is determined to win this race, even if it at the cost of his own teammate’s interests.

The only question that remains is whether or not his 37-year-old legs can compete with the younger man over three weeks. As is so often the case in the Tour de France, the answer will lie in The Alps.

Related Articles:
Armstrong and Cavendish – Two Men Of Concrete

German Grand Prix

2009-07-12T17:26:00.001+01:00

Before today’s race, Mark Webber was the star of the show. Despite being a top driver for several years, he has never quite managed to win a race yet. Nor, until yesterday, had he managed a pole position. A personable chap, and the head of the unofficial drivers’ union, he appears to be popular with the other grid regulars. Despite the presence of the two Brits near the front of the grid, there was an almost tangible desire to see him win the race.

As much as Silverstone last time, the Nurburgring is drenched in Grand Prix history, and the BBC used its substantial archive to showcase a retrospective of the track, incorporating the Fangio footage alongside some clips of Nazi parades at the track, all underscored with some Wagner. When it comes to avoiding clichés, we should probably be happy that they didn’t have David Coulthard in lederhosen.

We had the mandatory reference to the “original Nurburgring” which, I must admit, does sound amazing. It was originally a fourteen mile circuit around the mountains of the Eifel Forest which would be a horrendous challenge for the driver, but probably a bigger challenge for the broadcasters.

If you consider how many cameras are studded around the average Grand Prix circuit, it would probably take every lens in Germany to adequately cover fourteen miles. That’s why we keep seeing the same clip of Fangio going round the same corner – they only had one camera back in the fifties.

This is the ancestral home of German Formula One, it now fights Hockenheim for supremacy and has just started an arrangement whereby they will alternate the venue for the German Grand Prix.

Before the race, we had a tetchy interview with Michael Schumacher, with Jake gracelessly bringing up an old incident where Schumacher and David Coulthard had collided on the track and almost come to blows in the pits. We also had Martin Brundle, whose grid walk was most notable for his threat, thankfully unfulfilled, of showing us the drivers’ trackside toilets.

Finally, there was a young German boy band fellow knocking out the German National Anthem like it was a love song – it was like when they get Mariah Carey to do The Star Spangled Banner. Embarrassing and demeaning to everyone involve, but also a little creepy to hear “Deutschland, Deutschland. Uber alles,” rendered with such affectation.

As usual, the start of the race was where the action was. With a hairpin turn at the end of the start straight, it was always likely to produce a bottleneck. Lewis Hamilton made use of his KERS system to pull from fifth on the grid to be first going into the corner. Unfortunately for him, he hit the corner way too fast, overshot, recovered poorly, and emerged from the situation in last place, and with a puncture. After such pre-race optimism, his race was over before the end of the first lap.

Alongside Jenson Button at the entrance to turn one, Webber defended his pole position from the threat of the advancing Rubens Barrichello with a lunge to the right which, in the view of the stewards, was dangerous. Not only that, but it was also unsuccessful so Barrichello had already led Webber for the first few laps of the race, when Webber was given a drive-through penalty.

Unfortunately for Barrichello, this advantage was outweighed by getting stuck behind Felipe Massa after his pit stop. The Red Bull team got the tactics right and Webber worked his way beck to first place, eventually taking his first Grand Prix victory, with Vettel second.

The two drivers who failed to finish this race could, for very different reasons, be coming to the end of their F1 careers.

Despite a good result for one Ferrari driver, with Felipe Massa finishing third – only their second podium of the season – Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish. What’s more, he has continued to display his complete disregard for his employers by announcing he will compete at the Rally of Finland at the end of July.

After the Hungarian Grand Prix on the 26th July, there is a four week break until the exciting street circuit in Valencia hosts the European Grand Prix, so it's to be expected that the drivers will take a small mid-season break. However, I'm not sure Ferrari will be overjoyed to hear Raikkonen is spending his free time screeching around the icy forests of Finland.

It's really quite extraordinary that there is no contractual clause preventing him from doing it. I seem to recall Michael Schumacher had it written into his Ferrari contract that he would be allowed to play football during the winter break. Surely Kimi doesn't have a "rallying clause" in his contract?

The other non-finisher was Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Bourdais. He had qualified slowest, a full second down even on the hapless Timo Glock. Even before qualifying, there was dark talk of him being elbowed aside should he fail to impress this weekend. If that talk is true then we might have seen the Frenchman in his last Grand Prix.

Before the race, the BBC very deliberately interviewed Torro Rosso’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari. By the time we decamp to Budapest, he might be on the grid.

German Grand Prix Qualifying

2009-07-11T14:40:00.001+01:00

With a three week interval since Silverstone, it was inevitable that the politics of Formula One would take centre stage. A few days after the British Grand Prix, Bernie Ecclestone waded into the fray, tipping the balance towards the teams and effectively ending Max Mosley’s long reign as President of the FIA.

The teams, under the umbrella of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), made it very clear that they had no desire to breakaway, but that they felt unable to continue under Mosley’s autocratic leadership style. By giving a name to the problem, they explicitly gave Ecclestone an exit strategy.

After a meeting in Paris on 24th June, it was all over. Mosley emerged proclaiming that a deal had been struck with which all parties were happy – he played the whole thing as a triumph for his own negotiating skills, despite the evidence of the previous three months.

Then the bombshell. He would step down as FIA President at the end of his current term in October. Ecclestone had wielded the knife and, no matter how much he protested that it had always been his intention to stand down, Mosley was covered in blood.

When the detail of the deal was examined, it was nothing more than a non-specific expression of intent to reduce costs. Mosley’s hard and fast budget cap was dead, and lying beside him in the gutter.

Over the next few days the debate moved on to who would replace Mosley, and whether they would have sufficient independence and fortitude to regulate the teams. The pendulum had swung, and, although peace was breaking out, there was still some jockeying for position to be done.

Clearly stung by the humiliation, Mosley last week publicly accused FOTA of “dancing on my grave.” Crucially, he also claimed that he was, “under pressure now from all over the world to stand for re-election.” Painting himself as the reluctant speaker, he threw the cat among the pigeons with his implied threat to renege on his retirement decision.

On Wednesday night, the eight FOTA teams once more walked out of a meeting with Mosley, threatening to withdraw their 2010 registrations. Once again, the breakaway threat was in the air.

As the BBC coverage started, a pre-packed report on all the above shenanigans introduced Ari Vatenen as a potential rival to Max Mosley. Vatenen is a former World Rally Champion, which lends him credibility, and is well respected within the sport. In an attempt to raise his profile, he appeared on camera to meet Jake and the boys. Eddie Jordan was asked to interrogate him, and employed his usual incisive line of questioning: “Ari, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’m delighted to see you here. If you were President of the FIA, what would you stand for?”

After Vatenen presented his manifesto without a single challenging question, there was a great little film of Mark Webber meeting the Australian Cricket Team, over in Europe for The Ashes. Ricky Ponting, who is the chippiest of Australians when surrounded by Poms, seemed to get on well with Webber, and they obviously each knew a lot about the other’s sport.

The best moment was when Brett Lee enquired about Webber’s continuing recuperation from a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula with a chirpy, “How’s the leg going mate?” Got to love Australians.

On the track, qualifying was splendidly disrupted by rain. There’s always something exciting about rain at the Grand Prix, especially when it comes and goes during a session.

There’s always one surprise casualty in the first session of qualifying and, this time, it wasn’t Lewis Hamilton. Toyota’s Timo Glock managed to screw up every single hot lap he attempted. Missing a chicane during one lap, then sliding off the track in the next, he ended up racing round in the last minute, needing to improve his time, and, as spots of rain started to appear, the game was up. He will start the race from nineteenth.

Speaking of Lewis Hamilton, Eddie Jordan was actually talking up his chances before qualifying. His strong performance in earlier practice and some much publicised upgrades to the car prompted Jordan to predict a top three result in qualifying. Right on cue, Mercedes bigwig Norbert Haug appeared to make him look foolish, and intoning that this would be a little optimistic. There is controversy though within the team, as Hamilton has got all the upgrades, but his teammate Heikki Kovalainen has not. He is, we are told by Martin Brundle, “silently unhappy.”

The second session started in the rain, with everyone desperate to get out and put in a good lap. The first lap saw Nakajima, Massa, and Hamilton all go off the track, and everyone abandon their plans, coming in for intermediate rain tyres. As the water started to lash the track, they all started again – much more exciting for the blogger, if a little more frustrating for the drivers.

As the rain abated then fell again, Rubens Barrichello combined impeccable timing with good fortune and recorded a lap on dry tyres at just the right moment to take first place by two seconds. Less lucky was Fernando Alonso, who put dry tyres on just in time for the rain to fall again and was rewarded with a spin on his last attempt to qualify.

The final session appeared to restore normal service as the rain stayed off, the track dried out, and the familiar battle between Red Bull and Brawn for pole position was resumed. The driver on pole changed six times in the last minute but it ended Webber, Barrichello, Button, Vettel.

Interesting to see the Brawns performing well against Red Bull because, before qualifying, Ross Brawn had appeared to talk down his team’s chances. With much talk of tyre temperatures and weight distribution, there was an unmistakable pessimism in his voice.

Lewis Hamilton came in fifth which, whilst not quite as good as Eddie Jordan predicted, is no mean feat. It would seem that those upgrades really are making a difference.

Related Articles:
Previous Grand Prix – British Grand Prix
Previous Qualifying Session – British Grand Prix Qualifying

Two Men of Concrete

2009-07-09T21:25:00.001+01:00

The Tour de France has been rolling across the Mediterranean coast over the last few days, from Monte Carlo on Saturday, to Barcelona tonight. In the meantime, it has actually gone through France, and two men at very different ends of their careers have proved themselves to be what Stuart Pearce would call, “proper men.”

After the short first stage on Saturday, there were a couple of long flat stages set up for sprinters, and Mark Cavendish. The sprinter is an odd beast – he will sit inconspicuously in the peloton for a hundred and twenty miles before appearing in the last 500m and elbowing his way through to streak off the front of the pack. At the moment, there is no-one better at this than Cav.

On both days, his Team High Road squad did a terrific job of protecting him throughout the long stage across the southern coast of France but, on both days, he finished the race in style by muscling away from all his rivals. A good sprinter will lurk in a rival’s slipstream before leaping out at the last minute and flying past. On Sunday, as Cavendish flashed towards the line, his American rival Tyler Farrar lurked ominously on his wheel.

Contrary to Farrar’s expectations as he tried to draft Cavendish, the young British sprinter started moving AWAY from him. As they crossed the line, Cavendish raised his arms to start celebrating and was still moving away.

Following up with another win on Monday, he is wearing the green jersey of the best sprinter – this is his target for the Tour and, unless he falls off an Alp, he will get it. He is by far the fastest man in the world right now.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of the old stager Lance Armstrong to show the world he still has it. After three and a half years of retirement, he has come back this season and, whilst he has been impressive, he has not shown any of the dominant form of old and, at least outwardly, has been committing himself to supporting nominal team leader Alberto Contador.

But by stealing a few seconds on Monday he had manoeuvred himself ahead of Contador and, despite a little discomfort and discord within the team, Tuesday’s Team Time Trial was an opportunity for their Astana team to establish Armstrong in Yellow.

Eventually, he finished the day 0.22 seconds off yellow, but the thrill of the chase was so evocative of his glory days. He drove the rest of his team relentlessly on leaving them occupying half of the top ten spots in the race. Armstrong is now Astana’s top rider and it will be fascinating to see whether or not he goes back to supporting Contador, or keeps riding for his own victory.

Tomorrow there is the first real mountain stage as the riders move from Barcelona to Andorra, with the finish line outside a ski station. The Armstrong of old, sculpted from concrete would have used the stage to stamp his authority on the race. It will be interesting to see if his legs can propel him up like they used to. If they can, then I don’t believe for a second he’ll back off for the sake of his team.

Related Articles:
Giro d’Italia – Cavendish is a legend. 23rd May 2009

How We Laughed At Wimbledon

2009-07-03T19:12:00.000+01:00

As I watched the Wimbledon semi-final between Andy Roddick and Scotland’s Andy Murray, a wayward Roddick serve drifted across causing a line judge to take evasive action and dodge the ball fizzing towards him. He seemed fairly nonchalant about the whole incident, but the crowd’s badly stifled mirth at what they seemed to perceive as a “humorous incident.”

I’ve seen this before at Wimbledon, and I’m not sure if it a sign of the fairly simplistic sense of humour of the average Wimbledon attendee, or if that nervous giggle is the only decent release of the enormous and obvious sexual tension that pervades the court. If it wasn’t for this poor line judge and his emergency manoeuvres, I think the whole stadium would descend into an angry guilt-ridden orgy by the end of the third set.

To be honest, the humour bar is pretty low on Centre Court. What ranks as humour at Wimbledon makes The 40 Year Old Virgin look sophisticated and nuanced.

When I was a kid they would always show us the veterans' match between Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase. Handing over with barely controlled mirth, David Vine would chortle something about them being characters and that we should expect "fun and games." Inevitably this meant Nastase touching up a dog-ugly line judge, and Connors jumping over the net, to which the crowd would erupt into paroxysms of belly laughs.

While we’re on the subject of Centre Court oddities, why are there uniformed soldiers, sailors and airmen dotted around the place? It’s hard to say exactly what they are doing but they appear to be performing some sort of usher duties. Coincidentally, today they had one of the seven black soldiers in the British Army there while the cameras were turning! But surely we have more pressing duties for our Armed Forces than guiding people to the strawberry stalls. I know it’s not exactly Trident in the scheme of things, but I’m not sure this a good use of our defence spending.

Maybe we could leave it to the Chelsea Pensioners in the front row to do the ushering. About time they earned their pension.

Dancing In The Dark

2009-06-30T09:56:00.001+01:00

Andy Murray came through last night's fourth round match but little Stan pushed him all the way. In the end, he won the fifth set and went through to the quarter-final after ten o'clock.

The late finish was facilitated by the new Centre Court roof, erected ostensibly to allow play to continue through the rain, but with a happy side-effect of allowing matches to continue beyond the twilight hours.

The first time the roof had been deployed in anger, you could be forgiven for thinking that the All England Club had invented electricity for the fuss made by the BBC.

Prime time tennis bumping Eastenders to BBC2 would not be possible without the twin assets of that roof and the most credible British player for a generation. But oh my lord, they did go on about it.
There were countless shots of the dark London skyline, and the working class people on Henman Hill. There were crow barred ad-libbed platitudes: "The city has shut up shop for the night, but here on Centre Court we're still very much open for business." There were incredulous statements of the obvious: "It's dark on the hill, but no-one's leaving. Who'd have thought we'd see the day..."

These unprecedented circumstances didn't stop John McEnroe criticising people for leaving early. Empty seats at the death were condemned as disgraceful, but I doubt he even knows where Leeds is, much less the train timetable for getting there after a day at the Tennis. I dare say he got back to his hotel with time to spare for a G&T before getting his head down.

At the end of the action, there was the most brilliantly sycophantic leading question I've ever heard as Gary Richardson stuffed his microphone under Andy Murray's nose: "What about playing under the roof and the atmosphere generally? It was FANtastic wasn't it?" What the hell was he expecting him to say?

The thing is that pretty much every other tournament in the world has a floodlit show court. Believe it or not, evening tennis is not that big a deal outside the gilded lawns of Wimbledon, but that wasn't going to stop the BBC from milking it.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what is added to the coverage by the super slow-motion replays of Judy Murray punching the air, face contorted with aggression and adrenaline. Frankly, it's terrifying - she looks like a ginger cyborg.

See you in the Quarters.

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Wimbledon Tales

2009-06-29T20:55:00.001+01:00

As Andy Murray broke the serve of Stanislas Wawrinka in the second set to bring himself right back into today’s fourth round match, a small red flash at the bottom of the screen told us everything we needed to know about how Britain has taken young Murray to its collective heart… “Eastenders is on BBC Two.”

When you are relegating Ricky and Bianca to the second channel, you know you’ve arrived. As with most sporting events, the television coverage is what fascinates me most and the BBC have really thickened the gloss on their presentation.

There are ultra-slow motion replays of feet skipping across the court that almost audibly scream at you to buy an HD television, there are all the red-button shenanigans that make the four remaining analogue TV watchers shudder with fear, there are the first rate roster of presenters – from the fragrant Sue Barker to the grizzled John Inverdale. And then there are the pundits.

The BBC have not scrimped on their pundit pulling this year. As well as the impeccable John McEnroe, still sharing his time between the beeb and the American broadcaster ABC, there is the return of Tim Henman after last year’s largely forgettable debut. On the radio they have Michael Stich, alpha-maling Simon Mayo around the studio and flattening his Teutonic vowels across the action.

Post match discussion appears to be conducted on some exotic roof garden high above the union flag-clad morons, and, despite all the logical reasons ranged against it, continues to involve Pat Cash.

Cash, even at the age of 44, is still persisting with that ridiculous cross dangling from his left ear. I suppose to get rid of it now would be an admission of guilt and, since he shed his trademark chequered headband, he’s probably worried that no-one would recognise him without the Bryan Adams hair cut and the Limahl ear ring.

On Five Live, they are dragging way too much mileage from a shoddy feature called Tarango and Cash – see what they’ve done there? This involves Jeff Tarango and Pat Cash generally being loud and obnoxious and talking to the public whilst I put on a CD. Quite a stroke of luck for Tarango though – best known for forfeiting a match at Wimbledon for continuous, unrelenting and sustained swearing, you wouldn’t have thought that would have been the perfect CV for a career in broadcasting. But Pat Cash is a champion, he’s already on the payroll, and a clever-sounding name trumps content. Ladies and gentlemen, Tarango and Cash.

Greg Rusedski, who is still maintaining this charade of being British despite now being allowed to speak. When he was playing he could get away with it as we could suspend reality and take him to our bosom, but as soon as he opens his mouth I just want to throw an ice skate at him. To be honest, it’s hard not to like him. Knocking Rusedski is like shooting a baby deer. When he’s asked his opinion, he looks like a kid who has been given a lolly. With his toothy grin and big eyes, he seems to have no other thought in his head.

With all these former champions in the commentary box, and Tim Henman, I find myself annoyed by the inferior players who have the nerve to give their opinion. It’s curious that I am quite happy to listen to the opinions of a journalist on the exploits of top sportsmen, and yet I have such contempt for so-called expert pundits whose expertise never got beyond being ranked inside the top 200 in the world.

When I hear Andrew Castle suggest what might be going through Andy Murray’s head in a pressure situation, I do wonder what the hell he knows about pressure situations. The closest he ever came to a pressure situation was trying to get out of the way of Pete Sampras’ serves in the first round at Wimbledon.

As I finish this blog, Murray is two sets to one up and looking strong.

“Panorama is on BBC Two.”

British Grand Prix

2009-06-21T17:54:00.002+01:00

For reasons that are not particularly important, I found myself on the road during the build-up to today's Grand Prix. When this has happened in the past, I have harnessed the power of Sky Plus and observed radio silence until I have got myself up to date. Today, however, as we were in the car for a couple of hours, I decided to listen to the pre-race nonsense and the race commentary on BBC Radio Five Live.

As it's our home Grand Prix, the BBC had pulled out all the stops and sent Eleanor Oldroyd onto the pit lane, from where she would anchor the afternoon's broadcast. I like Oldroyd – she has experience and ability, and is very well regarded – but she sounded a little overwhelmed as she mingled with the drivers and the celebrities, and presumably avoided Martin Brundle.

I lost count of the times she told us about the accreditation she had which allowed her access to "the paddock, the garages, the very grid itself." I appreciate that this is her first time down there, but when compared to the insouciant Brundle, she came over as a bit of a giddy schoolgirl.

The odd thing about Five Live’s coverage is that they are also paying lip service to other sports so, unlike the television coverage, there were occasional distracting trips to Lord’s to catch up on the women’s cricket.

When the race started, David Croft did a very good job of relating the action and keeping the audience updated with what was going on. When you consider the fantastic amount of data swirling across the screen, not to mention the action itself, it is no mean feat to keep a listener informed. I was impressed.

As was predicted during yesterday's qualifying session, this was a race dominated by Red Bull. More specifically, their young driver Sebastian Vettel bestrode the weekend with a complete performance that invited comparisons with Michael Schumacher.

Starting from pole position, he got to turn one ahead of Rubens Barrichello and led all the way to the chequered flag. His teammate Mark Webber finished second, fifteen seconds back, although he might have given Vettel more of a challenge had he not been held up by Barrichello for the first twenty laps. By the end of the race, a further twenty-six seconds separated Webber from Barrichello in third place.

Jenson Button started poorly and found himself stuck behind the heavier car of Jarno Trulli. He eventually pulled himself to a sixth pace finish but was never in contention. Despite Barrichello’s performance, there has definitely been a transfer of dominant status from Brawn to Red Bull this weekend. What will be interesting now will be Brawn’s ability to react, and, if that fails, whether or not Button has done enough in the first half of the season to hold off the challenge of Vettel.

McLaren's bad run continued as Lewis Hamilton could only finish sixteenth, and Heikki Kovalainen failed to get to the end of the race. The BBC seemed desperate to make the point that, despite the relative failure of the two British drivers, the Silverstone crowd were indefatigable. Praise was given for the standing ovation afforded to the brilliant Vettel as he completed his lap of honour.

I find this more than a little patronising, albeit unsurprising from the BBC. They expect British fans to support British sportspeople to the total exclusion of any appreciation of sporting excellence. This belief is betrayed across their sporting broadcasting – from World Cup football, where half-time of a Spain-Italy game is seen as a good opportunity to have a report from England’s training camp; to the woefully jingoistic Olympic coverage where British medal performances are looped endlessly across the network, and other astounding performances are ignored because they have no impact on our sceptred isle.

Much discussion also, across the BBC, of the imminent departure of the British Grand Prix from the historical site of Silverstone. Next year’s race is due to happen at Donington, but Ecclestone yesterday revealed that Silverstone was on stand-by, should the extensive (and expensive) renovations at Donington fail to be completed on time. The fact that he has acknowledged this so publicly suggests that his faith in Donington is on the wane. Last year, when he made the decision to move to Donington, he said very clearly that there would be no British Grand Prix if Donington weren’t ready on time.

This is a perfect example of the fluid relationship that Formula One’s bosses have with decisions. There are no such things as definites in this game. That’s why I don’t think there will be a breakaway championship next year. The teams have clearly decided that they want a bigger share of the money and are flexing their muscles, but ultimately, everyone will be better off together.

The British Grand Prix this year was a pretty one-sided affair, but from my perspective, it was a novelty. Despite my enjoyment of the radio experience, I do feel somewhat empty without getting my fix of Brundle doorstepping Chief Engineers and Heads of State. In fact, by the end of the race, I had made it to a television and enjoyed the usual back-slapping of the post-race interviews.

I observed with some interest Rubens Barrichello grinning from beneath a goatee beard. Am I the only one that thinks this gives him a disturbing similarity to David Brent?

British Grand Prix Qualifying

2009-06-20T14:28:00.003+01:00

The politics of this sport are starting to get out of hand – “meltdown” appears to be the word de jour. Over the last few weeks, it has seemed that every time the teams try to make a conciliatory gesture towards the FIA, its President Max Mosley dug his heels in even deeper and refused to budge. Finally this week, the teams called his bluff in spectacular style.

I wonder if Mosley takes this approach when negotiating with sado-masochistic prostitutes. "I will be paying £1000 for the full whipping service but there will be absolutely no Nazi symbolism. You prostitutes are perfectly at liberty to pursue your own Nazi sex games, but, if you are participating in my dungeon, then there are rules to which you must adhere." Very strict rules I presume.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that, after Williams defected from the official line of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) line and signed up for 2010, the other teams followed, albeit with the condition that they might withdraw if they were unhappy with the final regulations.

Of course this meant that they had not really signed up at all, and Mosley insisted that all teams give an unconditional assurance that they will race next year by Friday – coincidentally the first day of practice at Silverstone.

In response, five of the most militant teams – McLaren, Renault, Brawn, Toyota and BMW – initially went over Mosley's head and wrote to the FIA Senate (I swear I'm not making this up), asking them to calm down their man. Last weekend, the President of Ferrari Luca di Montezemolo ostentatiously appeared at Le Mans last weekend, acting as official starter of the Twenty-Four Hour Race and, by his presence, dropping a broad hint that there could be life beyond F1 for Ferrari.

Mosley reiterated his position on the £40m budget-cap, offering a conciliatory “stepping-stone” budget of £86m in 2010. On Thursday, in response to this lack of movement, FOTA dropped their bombshell by announcing their plans to set up their own rival series of races. Eight teams – all of the current grid except Force India and Williams (who have signed up unconditionally for 2010) – have withdrawn their conditional entries, and are now moving forward with their separatist plans.

The general feeling within the sport appears to be that the warring factions will eventually be brought together, but plenty of opportunities for compromise have already been spurned, and the opinion is forming that only Bernie Ecclestone has the influence to bring things together.

Ignoring the imminent meltdown of their sport, the BBC kicked off with some expensively shot VT of Jake Humphrey and Eddie Jordan in a hot air balloon, overflying Silverstone. Jordan let it slip that his kids had gone to nearby Stowe school – I’ll bet they loved him there. I mean, he’s not real money is he? The don’t really like his sort – he’s Irish, mouthy, oikish and steadfastly refuses to call himself Edward. They probably blame his kids for the Swine Flu outbreak.

Jake has had a busy week – as well as his hot air balloon experience, he also took Jenson Button around the Silverstone track in a 4x4. Like an excited child, Jake managed to put the car onto the grass, much to Button’s evident terror. I don’t know how much the BBC are paying for their F1 coverage, but I hope their insurance covers the claim that would follow their presenter driving the World Championship leader into a tyre wall.

Finally, we got a microphone under the nose of Bernie Ecclestone. The man gives the most bizarre interview. He greets every question with a combination of straight-bat bemusement, and surreal pauses. Eventually he warmed up, with a little help from a fulminating Eddie Jordan, insisting that Bernie should “bang heads together.”

For what its worth, I reckon he will do just that. Money talks, and he’s the one that hands it out.

On the track, Brundle seemed to hint that Brawn could be on the rack this weekend – the feeling was that the other teams had done a lot of hard work to make up the gap over the last few weeks and the challenge to their dominance would be strong.

The evidence of the qualifying session seemed to back that up as the Brawn cars struggled in the early sessions, whilst Red Bull in particular, looked very strong. We are told they are using a new nose cone and rear diffuser. Whatever it was, it did the trick, as Sebastian Vettel won his second consecutive pole position.

Rubens Barrichello kept up the Brawn end though by finishing on the front row. Mark Webber took the other Red Bull to third, but Jenson Button could only manage sixth. The Williams cars, the scabs of the paddock, did very well too, challenging in each session and, in the end, Nakajima and Rosberg finished fifth and seventh respectively.

At the other end of the grid, Lewis Hamilton once again failed to get out of the first qualifying session. He was a little unlucky as an Adrian Sutil crash effectively curtailed the session whilst he was on his qualifying lap, but he was in that position because his earlier effort had been so poor. His team mate Heikki Kovalainen could only manage thirteenth on the grid, so the conclusion is not that Hamilton has suddenly become a bad driver, but that the McLaren has suddenly become a bad car. On board camera footage showed both drivers struggling to keep the car on the road through corners.

Ferrari were still off the pace with Felipe Massa failing to make the top ten, and Kimi Raikkonen finishing ninth.

Mogga’s Coming Home

2009-06-18T15:13:00.002+01:00

Yesterday the Premiership and Football League released their fixture lists for next season. Every year, the BBC and Sky Sport News go nuts for this administrative slice of data. It never ceases to amaze me how many hours can be wasted on the basic information of every team in the Premiership playing all the other teams.

“Champions Manchester United start the defence of their campaign against Birmingham.” How can this really be breaking news – especially when the even itself is in nine weeks’ time?

Meanwhile, in actual football news is the revalation that Tony Mowbray is to become the new manager of Celtic. It is a savage indictment of the Scottish Premier League that the man whose team finished bottom of the English Premier League last season, has been poached (at a fee of £2m, if reports are to be believed) to manage one of Scotland’s two biggest clubs.

Mowbray always comes across a nice enough chap but seems to be a grey cardigan of a man. Having played for Celtic, and had a little success as manager of Hibs, he is well regarded in the Scottish game.

I’m sure he’ll do a grand job, but when Celtic take a man who couldn’t even stir his team to finish above Newcastle last season, and install him as their man of the moment, I think they are admitting that maybe their league is a bit crap.

Purple Ronnie

2009-06-11T22:18:00.001+01:00

Today, Real Madrid had an £80m offer for Cristiano Ronaldo accepted by Manchester United. United fans seem to have accepted this with equanimity and, after a couple of Summers of feverish speculation, I think we are all rather pleased it is over with.

Most of the bemusement seems to have come from the fact that, in the middle of a global recession, and a week after spending £56m on Kack, Real Madrid appear to have found this much loose change behind the cushions of the settee. Although they have a reputation of being the government’s football club, well-earned during the Franco era, and quietly maintained in more recent years, there is no scenario where £136m is easy to find.

Real make more money than Manchester United from their global television rights – whereas the Premiership negotiate collectively and give Portsmouth the same money as Chelsea, Real can negotiate their own terms and leave Getafe and Oviedo to fight for table scraps. The Spanish club also rest easy in the knowledge that any bank would balk at the prospect of foreclosing on a Real Madrid loan – putting the King’s club out of business would be their final act as a going concern.

Footballing finance is in the news over here too – Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe has recently written to the Premier League expressing concerns about the financial sustainability of the game. The correct answer to this, of course, is, "Gerry who?" The idea of the Government questioning anyone over their fiscal affairs is like King Herod launching a campaign for more women to breast feed their children.

It will certainly be interesting to see how much of that fee Alex Ferguson is allowed to spend. Manchester United’s owners are £500m in debt, and their American bankers will have no compunction in closing the club down as soon as they start missing payments.

But, back to Real, and specifically, how are they going to recoup their £80m? They will sell a hell of a lot of shirts in the Far East, but there’s still a huge Ronnie-revenue gap. Here are my top five ideas for bridging that gap in the club shop.

1.“Broken Ronnie Weebles.” Based on the popular child’s toy, these weebles, emblazoned with the spotty face of Real’s new star, will wobble and ALWAYS fall down.

2.“Cristiano’s Plasma Hair Gel.” For that Just Been Born look.

3.A branded range of Clearasil with a big picture of Don Ronaldo on the side. Slogan: “Because he’s a spotty twat. Just like you.”

4.“Rocket Ronnies.” A series of fireworks which leave people open-mouthed in wonder at their pyrotechnic beauty. But cost a fortune, and smell odd.

5.A series of “Where’s Ronnie?” books. Based on the popular “Where’s Wally?” books, but rather than searching for a bobble-hatted speccy goon in a busy cityscape, these books will be a series of still photographs taken at recent Champions’ League knockout games and Portugal international matches. The challenge will be to find the winger who has, as is his custom, gone missing.

* Thanks to everyone for their contributions on Facebook today, especially to Wilkes, Lucy, Dobbie and Brear.

Turkish Grand Prix

2009-06-07T14:51:00.001+01:00

The fuss made about Turn Eight was extraordinary. The facts are that it is a seven second hurl around a constant turn which puts the driver’s neck under pressure of 5g and is physically the toughest corner in the year. Obviously, that’s hard work, but from the BBC coverage, you would be forgiven for thinking that the track was designed by Darth Vader. Following yesterday’s gym-based neck exercises with Lewis Hamilton, today the evil corner was invoked in just about every pre-race interview. The angle of drivers’ helmets as they went round was analysed at some length.

Out in the pit lane, Jake was a little skittish as this is an anticlockwise course meaning that, like an American tourist on Oxford Street, he was almost killed on several occasions.

He quickly handed over to Brundle for his pit walk. Seeking to add a little housewife’s favourite glamour, he took Coulthard with him this week and, sure enough, the big man seemed to open a few doors with no-one refusing to speak to them this week. Even Naomi Campbell was persuaded to give her half-baked, monosyllabic, ignorant opinion.

Jenson Button gave the appearance of being incredibly relaxed. It is extraordinary really that any of the drivers are willing to chat with media and VIPs so soon before the race, but Button was (literally) chilling in his ice vest and laughing and joking – the relaxed air of a winner.

I would have expected the BBC to have had Eddie Jordan interviewing the Turkish Prime Minister and asking him pointed questions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sadly though, Eddie sycophantic interview of the week didn’t happen today.

At the start, Rubens Barrichello got moving about as fast as my grandmother and lost about ten places, whilst Sebastian Vettel went wide on the exit of turn ten during the first lap to give Jenson Button the lead. Button subsequently started to set record laps and it seemed that another procession was on the cards.

After the first pit stops, however, Vettel came back at him, lapping three quarters of a second faster, catching him, and then crawling over the back end of Button’s Brawn but he couldn’t get past and, when he pitted for a second time, he left the race wide open for Button.

The real drama of the race came with Jenson’s team mate, Barrichello. Having had such a terrible start, he dropped to thirteenth then went kamikaze, bumping Sutil and falling to seventeenth, then bumping Piquet and having to go into the pits for a new front wing. I would have been quite happy to watch Barrichello all day rampaging his way around the back markers. Eventually, as he tussled for fourteenth place, the fact that he had lost seventh gear became too much to bear, and he discreetly withdrew.

Also there was a great tussle down the field between Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet. Nelsinho, as Jake insists on calling him is having a very bad season. Apart from his burdensome name, he has crashed more times than he’s finished, he’s continuously performed badly in qualifying and he has scored no points. Compared to team mate Fernando Alonso’s eleven points, he is coming under increasing pressure to perform.

To make matters worse, he works for Flavio Briatore – the Renault team boss is not afraid to criticise his drivers in public, and not averse to sacking them half way through a season. Having been overtaken by Hamilton, he ultimately finished sixteenth of eighteen finishers. It’s hard to see where the first point will come from.

The next race is in two weeks at Silverstone. Button will be hoping to add to the six Grands Prix he has under his belt this year by winning his home race. Expect there to be much speculation over the Donington future of the race, and, I am hoping, the return to form of Eddie Jordan.

Turkish GP Qualifying

2009-06-06T17:26:00.001+01:00

Since Monte Carlo, the teams have been trying to show some solidarity against Max Mosley. Their exclusive little club, FOTA, had universally rallied around Ferrari’s militant position in opposition to Mosley’s proposed budget cap. Unfortunately, the façade crumbled when Frank Williams broke ranks and signed up for the 2010 season, in direct opposition to the agreed FOTA line.

I realise that FOTA is hardly the National Union of Mineworkers, but a scab is a scab, and Williams were promptly chucked out of FOTA. The damage was done though, and the other teams went on to sign up for 2010, albeit conditional on the negotiations which still continue.

Mosley has received ten applications from new teams to compete under new budget cap rules so, in theory at least, a championship could go ahead next year without the FOTA teams. But it would be a weak championship for being without all the big names of the grid. The danger then comes from a rival series where the FOTA teams set up an alternative championship. This is a very real possibility as this struggle for power at the top of F1 unfolds.

As the teams reconvened in Turkey, Flavio Briatore spoke in an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone. “We do not want a war,” said the Renault boss, “we want governance, the F1 Commission, a Concorde Agreement and stability. We want cost-cutting.”

Back on the track, Felipe Massa had already conceded the world championships before we reached Turkey. Admitting that Brawn were uncatchable may well be acknowledging the truth, but it would probably have been helpful to Ferrari team morale if he had kept his mouth shut, at least until after the half way point of the season. The irony of his timing was that all the pundits seemed to think the Turkish track suited Ferrari, and that they would have a good weekend.

For qualifying, Jake and the boys were safely back in pit lane, having been rescued from their Monte Carlo yacht exile. Although there was a feature with Jake in the gym being beasted by a supremely fit Lewis Hamilton.

Eddie Jordan seemed supremely confident that all would be well with the wrangling at the top of the sport, whilst Coulthard wanted to move the conversation on, and talk about how brilliant Jenson Button is.

When Q1 got started, the supremely fit Lewis Hamilton failed to get in the top fifteen for the second race in a row. The second consecutive race that he has comprehensively failed to even give himself a chance of points. I know he’s the World Champion, but he is driving around like a nervous schoolgirl in qualifying. In fairness to him, his teammate Heikki Kovalainen only managed to qualify in fourteenth so the McLaren car is performing like one of their push chairs.

In the end, the session was dominated once again by Red Bull and Brawn. Their young stars Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button qualifying first and second respectively, with their older team mates Rubens Barrichello and Mark Webber starting behind them.

By out-qualifying Button, Vettel has given himself an opportunity to really give the championship favourite a race. Turkey is a great track for racing, and I am looking forward to a good race tomorrow.

Trente Quinze

2009-06-03T15:56:00.000+01:00

If the French have taught us anything, is that it is not necessary to have toilets which flush at service stations. If they have taught us a second thing, it is that language is a precious commodity, easily diluted, and to be guarded fiercely. Speaking as an avowed advocate of the apostrophe, and a slave to the semi-colon, I can respect their defence of their language.

This occurred to me yesterday as I was watching Andy Murray (English-speaking Scot) and Fernando Gonzalez (Spanish-speaking Chilean) playing in the French Open.

The lingua franca of world tennis is indisputably English. Press conferences are conducted in English, publicity materials are prepared in English, and all the players speak English (although often with a suspiciously American accent).

Specifically, if you were to watch an ATP tournament in Kazakhstan or Kuala Lumpur, all the scoring would be reported in English. No matter where you are in the world, and from wherever the umpire hails, he or she will continue to rattle out “fifteens” and “thirties” in whatever thick accent they may have, but always in English.

Except in France.

The most peculiar of the grand slam tournaments, the French Open has, throughout the years, thrown up far more surprise champions than the other three. Pete Sampras never won there, Roger Federer has never won there. The recent dominance of Rafa Nadal aside, there have also been several surprise winners in recent years – people who never managed to win elsewhere: Gaston Gaudio, Albert Costa, Carlos Moya, Gustavo Kuerten.

It is the only Grand Slam tournament played on the orange clay surface, which appears to make a huge difference to players’ ability to play their game. People who know more about this than I do tell me that the ball bounces higher which lessens the impact of more powerful players and big servers. When you see the players sliding around on it, it becomes apparent that it is certainly a different proposition.

Not only the surface, but it is also the language which marks out this tournament as different. In their usual way, the French have point blank refused to bend to the overwhelming influence of the English language, and the scores continue to be read from the chair in glorious francais.

I like the way the French do this – the Academie francais is the body which protects the language, feverishly condemning the anglicised invasion of words like weekend and email, and ensuring that all Hollywood films are dubbed rather than subtitled, lest French viewers should have their enjoyment spoiled by hearing the accursed and filthy English tongue.

And so, at the tennis, they continue to give the score in French and declare, “jeu, Murray,” or rather more pertinently, “jeu, Gonzalez,” at the end of each game. Rather splendidly, they use the word "egalite" for deuce. This conjures up revolutionary ideas of comradeship, and distracts attention from the fact that "deuce" is actually a French word.

Latest In The Hot Seat

2009-06-01T17:45:00.001+01:00

The appointment of Carlo Ancelotti to the vacant manager’s position at Chelsea betrays Roman Abramovich’s single minded search for success in Europe.

To his credit, Ancelotti brings two Champions’ League victories as manager of Milan, but when you look beyond that, there is not a great deal else to recommend him.

He has managed the mighty Milan for eight seasons and, in all that time, has only won the Italian Championship once, and that was five years ago. Far from building a dynastic legacy at Milan, such as those of Ferguson or Wenger, he has simply allowed his team to grow old and failed miserably to bring in any younger talent. The honourable exception to this is the Brazilian Alex Pato, although the truth is that even that deal was brokered by their Brazilian “ambassador” Leonardo – the man who will now replace Ancelotti.

There are those in Italy who say he has just got out in time, the house of cards about to collapse. I, on the other hand, look at the fact that they finished third, fifth and fourth in the last three years, and suggest he’s a couple of years too late.

Let’s face it, Abramovich does not have a track record of allowing his managers to build a generation of players – six managers in his six years in charge is almost as unstable as Tottenham Hotspur – so his choice of Ancelotti is revealing. He has picked a man not for long term development but for short-term success in Europe.

Despite the fact Ancelotti’s Milan have not even reached a quarter-final in the two seasons since their 2007 Champions’ League victory, the implication is clear. Either he delivers in Europe, or he will be on his way.

Hapless Footballers Number 2 – Dimitar Berbatov

2009-05-28T07:33:00.002+01:00

When it comes to judging the innate talent of a footballer, I would not claim to be anywhere as insightful as Alex Ferguson. Also, I acknowledge that he probably watches a bit more of Manchester United than I do – even though they are top choice on every week’s Match of the Day, he probably picks up the odd thing I miss.

But even taking all of that into consideration, I have to ask what the hell he was thinking, first to pay over £30m for Dimitar Berbatov, and then to continue to pick him despite all the visible evidence pointing to the fact he is completely rubbish.

In last night’s Champions’ League Came on in the second half and proceeded to spray passes in every direction, over the shoulders of his team mates and into touch.

I know that, in this post-Emile Heskey world, it is no longer necessary for a striker to actually score goals in order to “make a contribution.” There is much talk these days of what a player does “off the ball,” of “telling runs,” and of their “bringing something extra to the camp.”

However, in Berbatov’s case, not only is he rubbish at actually kicking a football but he has the work rate of a student with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is unfortunate for him that he is in direct comparison with Carlos Tevez, a man who makes the Tasmanian Devil look laid back, but even if you look at him with independent eyes, Berbatov is a lazy bastard.

I don’t know if looking like Ray Reardon and wearing a shoelace round your head really cuts it as “bringing something extra to the camp,” but I suspect he will be quietly sold at some point in the next twelve months and forgotten about along with Kleberson, Quinton Fortune and William Prunier – other players who the High Priest of Old Trafford bought and regretted, and yet never gets criticised. It’s almost as if the media are intimidated by him…

A hero in Bulgaria, Berbatov signed for German club Bayer Leverkusen in 2001 where he established himself, appearing in a Champions League final. He then made what has often proved to be a suicidal career move and entered the Tottenham Talent Vacuum. As he was rotated with Robbie Keane, Jermaine Defoe and, believe it or not, Darren Bent, he scored some spectacular goals, but always gave this impression of just going through the motions.

In the Summer of 2008, a nation gasped as it emerged that the mighty Manchester United wanted to sign him, despite him being almost the polar opposite of the typical Ferguson player. Tottenham spent the entire Summer coyly horse-trading before securing a deadline-day deal worth a jaw-dropping £30.75m. It was too late for Spurs to buy a replacement, and their rotten start to the season cost the hapless Juande Ramos his job, but I can’t believe that United have got value for money there either. He is just one of those players I have never ever seen have a good game – I know there must be something there, but I just don’t see it.

It’s not Dimitar Berbatov’s fault that Manchester United lost the Champions’ League final last night. Actually, it was Andres Iniesta’s fault as he was amazing in the middle of the field for Barcelona, but that does not detract from the fact that Berbatov must be the ludicrously overpriced buy of the season.

Monaco Grand Prix

2009-05-24T20:38:00.002+01:00

The BBC were always going to milk Monte Carlo for all it was worth and, sure enough, the coverage began with a package in which they had put Jake Humphrey in front of a green screen and superimposed him onto some archive footage of great drivers being interviewed. It was a quirky little sequence that made good use of the BBC archive, but in his efforts to make it look realistic, poor old Jake ended up nodding like a dashboard ornament.

We quickly moved onto images of Monte Carlo wealth and opulence juxtaposed with scrabbling fans fighting for a portion of mountainside from which to gawp at the race from a distance. Inadvertent social comment from the BBC – good to see.

There was an all too brief Max Mosley interview where he dropped a very broad hint that the budget cap would be in place by 2011, rather than the original plan of next year. Jake said apologetically that there wasn’t time to cover the potential breakup of the sport, so they cut quickly to a bleating interview with Nigel Mansell.

Brundle was in his element on his grid walk. Because the grid is actually a Monte Carlo street with very little room on either side, the usual engineers and hangers-on were all crushed into a smaller space. Add to that the fact that Monaco brings out the celebrities in their droves, and Brundle doorstepped the most unlikely sequence of people you are ever likely to see in a five minute timespan.

Firstly, he chatted to former driver Jacques Villeneuve, looking as happy as a kid who’d won the lottery; then he grabbed Prince Michael of Kent, a man who has won the lottery of life. Apparently the Prince’s status as patron of the RAC is enough to earn him the chance to strut around the grid – I’ll bet he isn’t camping on the side of a mountain.

From his Highness, Brundle moved onto Michael Johnson, a man who has an air of expertise when talking about anything at all. You get the impression you could ask him about the impact of the Wars of The Roses on Britain’s sixteenth century internationalism, and he would have an opinion, which he would deliver with all the authority of an Emeritus Professor of History. Next was Geri Halliwell, who was predictably chatting to the richest man in the city, Bernie Ecclestone. She seemed to phase even Brundle with her relentless banality.

The race started well for Brawn with Button holding his first position, and Barrichello overtaking Raikkonen going into the first bend. After that, it seemed to be a formality. In a great phrase from Brundle, he was toying with them like a cat with a ball of string. Barrichello lived a little more dangerously, with Raikkonen nibbling at him throughout, but another Brawn one-two was almost inevitable.

This might have been the race where Ferrari rescued their reputation. From Raikkonen’s front row qualification, they showed they were in the race and, aside from the Brawns, Raikkonen and Massa were by far the best on the track.

Another title contender Sebastian Vettel was running well until he went into the barrier in an almost identical slide to Hamilton’s in qualifying. Oddly, it wasn’t quite as funny when he did it.

Giro d'Italia

2009-05-23T21:40:00.001+01:00

For anyone who is not particularly a fan of cycling, you probably think that Chris Hoy spinning around a velodrome is the pinnacle of the sport. You would, of course, be wrong. The professional road racing circuit are where the world’s best cyclists do battle over hundreds of miles, Europe’s highest mountains, and in front of hundreds of thousands of fans every week.

It’s quite a mess – there is no unified series to compare to the Formula One World Championship, or even the Athletics Grand Prix series – as the various race organisers and teams argue among themselves. And then there is the constant spectre of drugs, hanging over cycling more than any other sport like a cloak of doubt.

There is a very real sense of generational change in the sport at the moment. With dozens of old stars failing tests and being banned, it has been a very painful process, but there are many younger stars coming through the ranks, winning races, and taking a very public and very vocal stand against drugs – a direct contradiction to the conspiracy of silence which characterised previous generations.

Everyone has heard of the Tour de France, but that is only one of three grand tours. The other two are the Vuelta a Espana and the one which is running right now, the Giro d’Italia. It’s a three week race of 21 stages which takes in two mountain ranges.

The old guard are represented by a resurgent Lance Armstrong. Racing in a supporting role for his team-mate Levi Leipheimer, there is no chance of him winning the tour, but he had stated he would like a stage or two. So far, he hasn’t made the impact we are so used to seeing but, in the last week, we will see whether his legendary stamina has survived the two years of retirement.

But it’s the new generation’s finest prospect that is catching my eye. Mark Cavendish is the best sprint cyclist in the world, and, in my opinion, the most exciting young sportsman in Britain.

By way of comparison, Chris Hoy got a knighthood for being the best in the world at riding three laps of a track, Cavendish does that after a hundred and fifty miles. I am being a little unfair to Hoy, who is very good at what he does, and seems to be a thoroughly likeable man, but it frustrates me that he is hailed for what he does at the Olympics live on the BBC, whereas Cav’s achievements are hidden away in the North of Italy, and on Eurosport.

Last year, he won four stages of the Tour de France – no other British cyclist has ever won more than two. This season, he won the prestigious Milan-San Remo one-day classic, and now he has won three stages of the Giro.

He was the only member of Britain’s glorious Beijing cycling team to return without a medal so, for the BBC, he’s a failure. He should be in the House of Lords.

Monaco GP Qualifying

2009-05-23T19:12:00.001+01:00

The blue riband event of the season is always Monte Carlo. Most of the drivers live there, so there tend to be a lot of hangers-on, and it is the race which, more than any other, attracts the wealth and glamour that has always adhered itself to Formula One.

The most iconic of courses, but also one of the narrowest, it is an incredibly difficult track on which to overtake, meaning that qualification and tactics are more important than ever.

Because of the lack of space around the tight pit lane, the BBC team were exiled to the gilded cage of a yacht in the harbour. We were shown footage of Flavio Briatore’s enormous yacht but Jake and the boys appeared to be on one of those cheap boats that takes people on half day tours. This is the BBC after all, and they have to account for every penny. Although I bet Steve Cram and Steve Redgrave, who were shown sipping champagne on deck, hadn’t paid for their flights.

In the fortnight since Barcelona, the political powers behind Formula One have been facing off like rutting stags. In response to Max Mosley’s proposed budget cap for next season, Ferrari said they would not compete under those conditions and would withdraw from the competition. Despite the fact that Kimi Raikonnen seems to have withdrawn from competition a year early, this was seen as a very real threat, with other teams following Ferrari’s lead.

Despite Ferrari’s sixty year unbroken relationship with F1, stretching back to the very first Championship Grand Prix, Mosley said that he was quite happy for the sport to continue without the presence of the prancing horse. Bringing in new teams is his priority, and Ferrari are not bigger than the sport. He’s right, of course – F1 without Ferrari would be like Police Academy without Steve Guttenberg, it would survive but it would stink. But the competition is currently in such a mess that it resembles Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow.

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Mosley has said there is no hurry to get resolution, and the whole saga feels like it has a long way to go.

Eddie Jordan’s sycophantic interview of the week involved him lobbing underarm questions at Prince Albert of Monaco. Even when he asked an awkward question about the potential of a breakaway from F1, he couched it in such apologetic terms that you would have thought he was asking where the lavvy was.

When the qualifying started, it was Lewis Hamilton who was the star of the show. In the first session, he lost control of his car going into a corner and put it into the barrier, wiping out his rear suspension, losing his chance to qualify any higher than sixteenth, and ruining any realistic chance he had of scoring any points this weekend. I don’t know why but, I just find it very difficult to warm to the young Swiss-resident tax-exile.

It’s starting to get a bit old now, but Jenson Button again won pole, but the unexpected success came from Ferrari – Raikkonen woke up long enough to take second place, and Massa grabbed fifth. Maybe they are worried this might be their last Monaco Grand Prix so they’d better make it count. Whatever the outcome of the behind-the-scenes negotiations, I am hoping for a good race tomorrow and, if we are really lucky, another no-pressure crash from Lewis Hamilton.

All Change For Florent

2009-05-17T18:03:00.001+01:00

Live football today was Chelsea and Blackburn at Stamford Bridge. A strong performance and a 2-0 victory for Chelsea, albeit too late in the season for it to actually mean anything.

Florent Malouda, apparently stung by my criticism of his fruit-based hairstyle last week, seems to have had it redone. The braids remain, but, instead of one little stalk, he has got the braids at the front and back of his bonce, and pulled them together so there is a sort of furry line across the back of his head where they meet.

It looks like a cross between some kind of hairy bivalve – a whelk, perhaps – and the talking plant from Little Shop of Horrors. He must have a go-to guy for braiding who’s on call twenty-four hours a day. “That pomegranate look was okay, but I’ve a big match coming up, can you make me look like I’m wearing a hairy lop-sided tiara, please.”

He scored Chelsea’s first today with a clinical header though, so perhaps the new do is paying for itself.

Spanish Grand Prix

2009-05-10T16:58:00.002+01:00

As the circus moves to Spain, there was much talk of Alonso mania in Barcelona, and we were duly shown pictures of autograph hunters and flag-waving supporters. I’m not sure how big an influence this really is on a Formula One driver. Nigel Mansell always used to say the crowd at the British Grand Prix gave him an extra second per lap, but it’s hardly the same as the Gallowgate End when you are in a deafening car and your ears are securely plugged.

A realistic Fernando Alonso wasn’t playing the game. “Will you give your fans something to cheer today?”

“Well, we’ll do our best, but it’s going to be very difficult.”

Some of the Spanish fans were too busy poking fun once more at Lewis Hamilton. This is an interesting cultural difference between Spain and Britain. There are very few black people in Spain, so they still see it as a bit of wacky knockabout fun to black up and pretend to be Lewis Hamilton, whereas in Britain, we prefer our racism to be a little more subtle.

Following up on the Ferrari team’s travails, the BBC had a filmed interview with Kimi Raikonnen which had been recorded earlier in the week. Raikonnen is never overflowing with charisma, but I thought he was about to lapse into a coma during one answer. He seems to have applied the same level of enthusiasm to yesterday’s qualifying, finishing in sixteenth place.

Eddie Jordan was incandescent, advocating his immediate suspension. Michael Schumacher should take his place, apparently.

Martin Brundle, sick of being blanked by the top drivers on his pit walk, decided to go to the back of the grid where he presumed the also-rans would be delighted with the publicity. So who did he interview? Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend.

He moved on to Sebastian Bourdais and led with, “anything you can do from back here?” He might as well say, “You’re a bit crap really aren’t you?” Incidentally, whenever I hear Sebastian’s surname, I start singing “On a Ragga Tip” by SL2. That’s a pretty obscure reference unless you are almost precisely the same age as me.

He then interviewed the two Force India drivers who had qualified in the last two positions on the grid and actually led into Adrian Sutil with this question: “How do you cope with waking up in the morning, brushing your teeth, and knowing you don’t have a prayer?” I’m surprised he didn’t get a punch in the teeth.

The start of the race was one of those belters that I enjoy where there is complete mayhem as Jarno Trulli’s Toyota went off the road, then speared back across the field, taking out both Torro Rosso cars and Adrian Sutil. Looks like Brundle was right about his chances.

The race was again dominated by Brawn with Button eventually coming out ahead of Barrichello, but their lead over the rest of the field is now huge – they have 68 points in the constructors’ championship, with Red Bull trailing in second on 38.5

Felipe Massa was having a good race in fourth place with five laps to go but rather farcically ran out of fuel, and had to allow Vettel and Alonso past him so he could coast home. Coupled with the fact that Raikonnen failed to finish once again, Ferrari are becoming a laughing stock. Eddie Jordan is probably hiring hitmen as we speak.

Spanish GP Qualifying

2009-05-09T16:31:00.002+01:00

It’s a fortnight since the Bahrain Grand Prix, and in that period, McLaren have been up before the authorities again – I’m getting bored of this now so I won’t go on about it. Especially as the biggest off-track news was the proposed changes to next year’s championship.

In a beautiful piece of Formula One backroom politics, FIA president Max Mosley took the ball-gag out of his mouth and announced a £40m budget cap from 2010*. A sensible idea designed to allow teams to budget in these straitened times, encourage new teams onto the grid, and level the playing field. This being the FIA, however, they managed to take a good idea and turn it into a complicated mess.

The £40m budget will cover all expenditure except one or two exceptional costs:
1. Marketing and Hospitality – okay, that’s fair enough. No sense punishing a team for putting on a good spread.
2. Fines imposed by the FIA – erm, okay. But I would have thought any disciplinary wrongdoing should be included as a punishment.
3. Drivers’ Salaries – what? Surely the driver is an integral part of the team’s performance. That should be number one on the budget process surely.
4. “Any expenditure that has no influence on performance in the championship.” – Oh you’re just taking the piss now.

I haven’t got to the best bit yet – the budget cap will be entirely optional. This makes it beautiful in its redundancy. It’s like taking the government’s ID Cards, saying that you don’t need a picture on it, and that your date of birth is optional, and it doesn’t really matter if you carry someone else’s instead.

* There was no ball-gag, and any suggestion that there was a ball-gag would be a filthy lie.

Before qualifying, the BBC boys continued their habit of conducting interviews in front of the team garages, despite the fact that the engines are being revved in readiness, making it the loudest place in Spain. Ross Brawn and Williams’ Patrick Head were both interviewed about the proposed budget cap, and both seemed to dismiss the idea as unlikely to happen, but this didn’t stop Eddie Jordan working himself into a lather.

I think perhaps I am being unfair on Jordan, but he just seems so angry. Mind you, the Dalai Lama would look pissed off standing next to David Coulthard, soaking up the sun with his air of benign contentedness.

There was also a short film on the British Grand Prix featuring an interview with Simon Gillett, who runs the Donington circuit that will host the British GP from 2010. The back-story here is that Bernie Ecclestone fell out with Silverstone over their inability to expensively upgrade the circuit and, amid threats to remove the British GP from the calendar, Donington stepped in and secured the contract.

The problem is that Donington is not much more than a building site, they are being sued for £2.5m in unpaid rent, and the bank has withdrawn their credit. This chap Gillett was trying to sound reassuring about securing funding and having the place ready in time, but he came across as something of snake oil salesman, and I reckon Silverstone might yet have to step in.

Jake summarised the piece by saying, “I’m sure British fans wouldn’t want to lose the British Grand Prix.” Well, that’s probably a safe assumption for the tens of thousands of fans who pay their £250 to attend each year, but for the rest of us, it wouldn’t make that much difference – Barcelona or even Singapore is just as close as Donington for me because I’m watching them all in my front room. The British GP only gets more media coverage than, say, the Spanish, because all the papers’ top sports editors fancy a day out.

In the actual qualifying, Jenson Button pulled out the final lap of the day to secure pole position alongside Sebastian Vettel – they say Barcelona is not a great course for overtaking, so this might shape up to be yet another victory, but that’s for tomorrow.

Further back, Ferrari’s much vaunted upgrades seemed remote as Kimi Raikonnen managed to go out of the first qualifying session, and will start sixteenth on the grid. Although Felipe Massa made it to the second row of the grid, it seems that all is still not right at Ferrari.

Commentary of the day:
Martin Brundle, commenting on Kovalainen clunking onto the kerb, said he had, “an armful of opposite lock through seven and a tankslapper through eight.” I have no idea what any of that means.

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Hapless Footballers Number 1 – Nicklas Bendtner

2009-05-08T16:42:00.000+01:00

After Arsenal were knocked out of the Champions’ League on Tuesday night, young Nicklas Bendtner decided to go out for a quiet drink to drown his sorrows. Approximately six hours later, he was photographed leaving a nightclub with his jeans round his ankles, that quiet drink presumably having turned into one or two louder ones, followed by the inevitable public display of underpantage.

“Reaching a Champions’ League final is one of my biggest dreams and getting knocked out was a massive blow,” Bendtner snivelled. “However, no matter how disappointed I was, it does not excuse my behaviour later in the evening. I want to apologise to the club and the fans for letting them and myself down.”

What is curious about this apology is that at no time yesterday, or indeed at any point throughout the season, did he see fit to apologise for the fact that he is completely hopeless as a footballer.

Bendtner joined Arsenal as a sixteen-year-old from Denmark and joined the Wenger dream-factory, scoring buckets of goals in the reserve team but not cracking the first team beyond the few mandatory League Cup games.

Honestly, there was one third round tie against Burnley a couple of years ago when Wenger played a team made up entirely of the schoolfriends of one of his grandkids just for a laugh. A lot of pundits grumble that Arsene brings the League Cup competition into repute every time he picks a team, whereas I believe the Cup was brought into repute long before that, when the Football League allowed it to be sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board – who ever got an open top bus parade for winning something called the Milk Cup?

And while I’m on the subject, why the hell did we ever need a Milk Marketing Board, and more importantly, why did they have a budget large enough to sponsor a national football competition? Were people sitting around drinking Tizer until they saw Ronnie Whelan’s extra time winner in 1983?

Anyway, Wenger loaned Bendtner out to Birmingham for an entire season, during which he helped them get promoted from the Championship. According to press reports, City manager Steve Bruce wanted to sign Bendtner on a permanent basis, but, extraordinarily, rather than taking Bruce’s hand off like a half-starved alligator Wenger instead gave Bendtner a five year contract.

This seriously calls into question Arsene Wenger’s reputation as a professorial polymath with an impeccable eye for a player. But if Steve Bruce also wanted him, then there must have been something there.

Why, then, has Nicklas Bendtner in the two seasons since then, degenerated into such an incompetent figure of fun. The main reason that Arsenal fans mourned the loss of Eduardo after that nasty leg break was that it meant Bendtner would be forced to have a lengthy run in the side. Apparently he and Emmanuel Adebayor don’t speak to each other any more, presumably because Bendtner thinks Adebayor’s goals make him look bad.

He’s wrong. It’s his own lack of pace, brick wall first touch and woeful eye for goal that make him look bad.

Champions' League

2009-05-07T19:41:00.002+01:00

After two of the greatest football teams in the world clashed last week an stuttered to a boring nil-nil, I must confess that my hopes weren’t high for last night’s second leg of Chelsea vs Barcelona. However, having watched Barca destroy Real Madrid at the weekend, I confess I was hoping for some attacking flair and Chelsea being humbled in front of their own fans.

It turned out to be a controversial affair that ended with Didier Drogba swearing on live television and a roly-poly Norwegian referee being smuggled out of the country like a paedophile at The Old Bailey.

Michael Essien scored Chelsea’s goal after nine minutes with a one-in-a-thousand left-footed volley into the top corner – a goal that deserved to win any game, making the next hour and a half all the more amusing.

Throughout the game, Barcelona had the majority of possession but couldn’t get near the goal as Chelsea soaked it up and played on the break. Much to the dismay of their supporters and players, Chelsea had a total of four penalty appeals turned down by the ref and, just on the law of averages, at least one of those ought to have been given. But they weren’t.

In the 92nd minute, Andres Iniesta hit one of those rising shots that looks like it would kill a spectator if it goes wide. It tore into the top corner leaving Michael Ballack thumping the ground with his fist, and Didier Drogba, by now back on the bench in an apoplectic rage.

I missed a lot of the scenes after the final whistle, which featured Drogba almost tearing his clothes in horror at the injustice, because I was bent double with mirth. As a relative neutral, I have to say that the prospect of Manchester United playing Barcelona is a much more appealing final than yet another meeting with Chelsea.

As in previous rounds, I found my mind wandering during the action, and started assessing the Chelsea squad by haircut. I have had my suspicions about Drogba for a while now, but every time I see him, it becomes more and more apparent that the man is quite plainly going bald. He has it long at the back and wears that headband, but it does him no favours.

After he scored, I noticed exactly the same thing about Michael Essien – he has thick lustrous locks covering the rearmost 60-70% of his bonce, but there’s no mistaking that self-same receding hairline.

Surely this is a role for Ray Wilkins – brought in during the Scolari regime to instil some good old fashioned British grit and determination, he needs to pull these fancy-dan foreign boys aside and tell them to shave it all off. He is living proof that looking like Uncle Fester need not be an impediment to an international football career.

Looks like Nicolas Anelka got the tap on the shoulder some years ago.

While we’re on the subject, what on earth has Florent Malouda done to his hair? He has his hair braided (which sounds like agony to me), and then drawn into a point at the back, where there’s a little hair stem that makes him look like he has a freshly plucked piece of fruit on his shoulders.

We used to have a guinea pig before the boy was born who had hair growing in every different direction possible. The poor little sod looked like someone had dragged him backwards through a brush, covered him in glue, thrown a pile of straw at him, and then dried him off with an industrial strength fan. John Terry, ladies and gentlemen.

Petr Cech has got the right idea with his skull cap – designed specifically to match his big girl’s blouse. For all we know, he could look like Manuel Almunia under there.

Incidentally, there is a lot of hot air at the moment about whether or not Manuel Almunia should be allowed to play for England. Despite being 100% Spanish, he has now lived in Britain for long enough to claim citizenship, whereupon he will be entitled to play for any of the home nations (I would pick Northern Ireland just to annoy Capello). Although this is within the rules, there is much hand-wringing about whether we should allow a Spaniard to wear the three lions.

But this is totally missing the point – the real debate should be whether or not we want the England shirt to be worn by a 32 year old man who thinks it is appropriate to bleach his hair.

We’re Going Down With The Mackems

2009-05-06T21:54:00.001+01:00

It looks like Newcastle United are now in complete freefall. This month’s saviour couldn’t save his own pocket money and, unless there is a resounding victory against Middlesbrough next Monday, it will be almost impossible to stay in the division.

Alan Shearer has now had five games in charge of the team and has steered the club to just two points in that time. Worse, his 3-5-2 formation has served up just one goal. The experiment has failed – it was hoped that he would give the players an instant lift and motivate them to earn the handful of points needed for safety. Instead, he has fiddled with the formation, swapped players like they are on stickers, and, even with Iain Dowie beside him, displayed no evidence of any tactical acumen.

In just one month, the physical strain is starting to show. On Sunday, he looked so pained as Liverpool scored their third goal, that even Dowie looked calm and carefree in comparison.

I’m sure he’s lost some more hair too. The male pattern baldness that has been stalking him for several years had left him sporting a small patch of hair at the front of his head – a patch that has become known in our house as Shearer Island. After just five games as a Premiership manager, Shearer Island has disappeared, like that place in the Caribbean that sank under the waves after a particularly troublesome volcano went off.

After the Liverpool game, Shearer focused his anger on the increasingly farcical figure of Joey Barton. Having seen him sent off for a clumsy tackle on Xabi Alonso, Shearer decided to scapegoat him for the fact that the club is in 19th place in the league. He then took the morally courageous decision to suspend a player who was already suspended from playing due to the red card!

I’m no particular fan of Joey Barton, but it is unfair and just plain lazy to blame him for all Newcastle’s woes. The tackle wasn’t even all that reckless – it was a red card offence, but Shearer was so disgusted with it that he seemed to completely forget the time he tried to put one of his football boots inside Neil Lennon's head.

The real problem facing Shearer is that, as his status as Newcastle’s messiah slowly burnishes, his fallback day job may be looking just as precarious. In much the same way as I have never bought into the idea that he would be a great manager simply because he was a great striker, nor have I ever been convinced by Alan Shearer the pundit.

Whilst he’s been away, a couple of young pretenders have been establishing a foothold and may prove difficult to dislodge. Lee “Alan” Dixon, in complete contrast to Shearer, is interesting and insightful; and I can’t be the only person to be surprised at Martin “Alan” Keown. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but who could possibly have looked at this marauding old-fashioned centre-half, a man who made Tony Adams look like David Beckham, and foreseen a glittering media career? He is articulate, well-spoken, and confident. Why should the fact that he looks like Mr Punch be an impediment to a television career?

Tyrannosaurus Ref

2009-05-05T22:41:00.000+01:00

I feel as though I ought to write about the weekend’s Ricky Hatton Fight, although I am struggling for anything original to say. I love Ricky, but I think the boring and sad truth is that he has now found his level.

He has fought two of the best boxers of the last twenty years, and they have both beaten him – there’s no shame in that. On Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao used his superior hand speed and phenomenal power to put what I hope is an end to the career of one of the most charismatic and, let’s be honest here, one of the most extraordinarily talented British fighters of my generation.

But what could be my unique take on this? I can hardly bang on about what a great fighter Ricky has been – it’s been done. I could talk about other British boxers who have found success in America, although I don’t think anyone has ever taken twenty-five thousand fans across with them.

I could talk about the dramatic impact Pacquiao is having on the world of boxing, eclipsing Floyd Mayweather as the now-universally acknowledged best boxer on the planet. But that’s all been said.

No, the real story here is Kenny Bayless. He is the American referee who pulled out Ricky’s gumshield two minutes into the second round. He has taken charge of several world title fights now, has established a reputation as one of the best in the business but best of all, he runs unmistakeably like a T-Rex.

Seriously, you have to see some footage of him – he sort of bounces around the fighters on his hind legs, moving his head around as though he’s looking for food, and his gloved hands sit limply in front of him like the vestigial limbs of a flightless bird. I reckon the only reason he is so good at what he does is that his vision is based mainly on movement.

It’s an odd job, that of the boxing referee. Almost exclusively the preserve of former pros, the crucial skills appear to be the ability to fasten a bow tie, and the willingness to stand between two psychopaths. Back in the old days, the ref was on the payroll of the promoter and there are countless examples of “long counts,” where the knocked out fighter would be nudged with the boot and encouraged to rise and continue. “These people need to get their money’s worth.”

Nowadays, boxing likes to hold the fiction that the safety of the boxers is paramount. I’m not anti-boxing – far from it – but I am anti-hypocrisy and there is no way you can describe this as a safe sport. Nonetheless, the referee these days is much more likely to step in and save a struggling fighter rather than allow the fight to continue and a serious injury to occur.

You can hardly blame Bayless for not stopping the Hatton fight early – not a single person in the state of Nevada saw that left hook coming, much less Ricky.

I love the unwritten rule that appears to dictate that the physical size of the ref has to be in inverse proportion to the fighters. So whereas Bayless towers over the welterweights, tiny Mickey Vann – something of a personality with his own catchphrase, “no naughties with the heads…” – always gets put in with the monstrous heavyweights.

I hope Ricky decides the time is right to retire. He has been one of the all-time greats and will have a long and lucrative career of TV punditry and after-dinner stand-up. My only concern is that, if he lets himself go and puts on the pounds, we’ll not be able to find a referee small enough for him.

El Clasico

2009-05-03T10:00:00.001+01:00

It seems that every other week, particularly as we approach the end of the season, there is a “showdown” between two of the Premiership’s Big Four. Endlessly hyped by Sky, if it’s not a GRAND SLAM SUNDAY, then it’s yet another so-called European showpiece tie being played out to a boring stalemate by two of our ubiquitous top clubs. The fact that English clubs have provided three of the four Champions’ League semi-finalists in each of the last two years is not a source of joy to me. I also disagree that this is evidence that the Premier League is the best league in the world – it is evidence that our top four clubs are the best in the world, but where are the rest?

This season, the team attempting to stop the Premiership’s dominance of Europe is Barcelona. The fact that Sky have the rights to Spanish football means that a football fan can watch this amazing team every week, and yet they make a lot less fuss about this than they do over whichever Premiership match they happen to have.

This weekend saw the showdown between Barcelona and Real Madrid – the traditional rivals that make Manchester United and Liverpool look like childhood sweethearts. Going into the game, Barcelona were four points clear at the top of the league and knew that a draw in Madrid would probably secure the title.

I was a little worried that, with so much at stake, it might be an edgy game, but Gonzalo Higuain scored after fourteen minutes for Real, before Thierry Henry responded for Barcelona just a couple of minutes later. Interesting that Henry left our league to go and play in Spain.

Before twenty minutes were on the clock, Henry won a free kick near the penalty area on the left and Carles Puyol headed in Xavi’s cross to score his first of the season. After such a flurry of goals, I wondered how the game could possibly continue at such a pace, but it seemed that, having been stung by conceding an early goal, Barca just kept getting better.

For the next fifteen minutes, Real keeper Iker Casillas was playing like a psychic, improbably getting himself behind every Barcelona shot from any angle. Their front three of Samuel Eto’o, Thierry Henry and the great Lionel Messi were attacking like the Harlem Globetrotters. Their reputation is well earned – between the three of them, they have scored more goals this season than any other club in Europe. On Sky, Gerry Hamilton was reduced to endearing sighs and cries as he watched the action.

It couldn’t last of course, and Leo Messi scored after thirty minutes. After that, it became slightly embarrassing as Barcelona, with their Velcro touch, lightning runs and telepathic understanding, passed the ball around as if they were playing a youth team.

At the start of the second half, Real shook off their inferiority complex, presumably having been shown a copy of the table at half time, reminding themselves that they are second in the league, not in the fourth division. An attacking free kick was headed in by Sergio Ramos after a penalty area tussle.

Unfortunately, as in the first half, this just seemed to anger the beast and, barely a minute after Hamilton had cried “Game On!” Henry scored another. Messi then scored his second; a goal which left the Real defence watching in awe – his 36th goal of the season and the second time during the game that I had spontaneously risen to my feet and applauded.

By now, Real were utterly defeated and looked like they just wanted to start their summer holidays now. In the last ten minutes, one more sweeping move carried the ball from one end of the pitch to another before it was tapped in by, of all people, central defender Gerard Pique. Why did Manchester United let him go?

Next time you are bemoaning the state of the Premiership and the fact that our league has become boring, give the Spanish League a try. I can’t promise you eight goals every week, but I will assure you that you’ll see some great football and genuine talent.

Loneliness Of The Long Distance Snooker Player

2009-05-02T11:56:00.001+01:00

The last two weeks have seen the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield. The Embassy, as it used to be known during my childhood has had to ditch its long term sponsor and is now known as the BetFred.com World Championships – gambling being a much more socially acceptable vice than smoking.

The annual event at The Crucible is ingrained into my childhood memories like steam pudding, grazed knees, and nits. I used to watch it avidly in the eighties, but I must confess I have lost touch with it in recent years (well, recent decades, actually). As a result, aside from the names such as Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, whose fame has transcended the sport, I have no idea who the current players are, although I was pleased to see Stephen Hendry still going strong, and with better skin.

I settled down this morning to watch some semi-final action between Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson, and I must confess, I really enjoyed it. For someone whose skill levels never went beyond playing pound-a-frame pool at college, I am full of admiration for their talent.

Shaun Murphy looks like a poorly inflated bouncy castle. I don’t want to rehearse the old argument as to what constitutes a sport, but even the biggest snooker fan would struggle to refer to Murphy as an athlete.

Neil Robertson is an Australian chap who has a ridiculous blonde Vernon Kay haircut that makes him look like he should be playing for Exeter City. I wonder what happened to him at school in Melbourne, when the lads were specialising in Rugby and Aussie Rules, to make him settle on snooker.

This is the thing about snooker players, especially Australian ones, but generally all of them. They are, basically, complete nerds. The skills are amazing and the dedication admirable, but there is a constant undercurrent of tragedy surrounding the entire venture. When I look into Shaun Murphy’s eyes, I don’t see happiness. Even when he is winning a frame, all I see is hopelessness and darkness.

What is interesting is how the TV coverage has changed in twenty years. Not just the inevitable technical advances – more camera angles, computer generated table shots showing the various angles – but also the human coverage is very different. For example, after he missed a crucial yellow, we were treated to a slow-motion replay of Neil Robertson’s disappointment-etched facial reaction. That owes much to the sports production of football where replays of goals are followed rapidly by reaction-shots of both managers.

I’ve been watching for about an hour now and, I admit it, I’m starting to get a bit bored. I reckon I will revisit this next year, even if it’s just for a random hour.

Bahrain Grand Prix

2009-04-26T17:20:00.001+01:00

The story of this season is rapidly becoming a tale of two teams. The success story – more so than even they would have dared predict – is Brawn. Meanwhile, the grand old lady of motor racing, Ferrari, are having the worst start to any season since their inception in the thirties.

The team and the car they have produced appear to be just terrible this season. A decade ago, Michael Schumacher won five consecutive world titles with that team and, whilst Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikonnen might not be as good as Schumacher, they are not second rate drivers.

Massa was second in last year’s World Championship, and has eleven Grand Prix wins to his name; whilst Raikonnen was himself Champion the year before, and has won seventeen Grands Prix.

As if all that’s not bad enough, Eric Clapton is there supporting them.

Kimi Raikonnen managed to avoid an unprecedented four non-scoring races for Ferrari by finishing sixth, but they did their best to screw that up, as Massa bumped into him at the very first corner of the race.

So what is the difference? In two words, it is Ross Brawn. He designed the car that propelled Schumacher to his record titles. And now he has started his own team, which is leading the Constructors’ Championship by a lap.

Brawn again dominated the race with Jenson Button. Another victory and now a twelve point lead in the World Championship.

Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Lewis Hamilton did nothing to dispel my theory that he is sitting uncomfortably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. As there were awkward questions to be asked about Hamilton lying to the race stewards in Australia, the BBC decided that Jake should do the interview. Eddie Jordan’s style not entirely suited to anything tougher than a promotional video for Centerparcs.

Despite this, the interview was blander than a beige packet of Ready Salted crisps. Nothing was gleaned from it other than Lewis is “just focused on driving the car.” Groundbreaking.

Back in pit lane, Jordan was left to philosophise on the human condition: “More cooling means more horse power. That’s just a fact of life.”

Martin Brundle’s grid walk was particularly entertaining this week as he combined his usual struggle to find anyone willing to talk to him with an ongoing grumble that he was not allowed to speak to visiting VIP Robert Plant. He got hold of Eric Clapton, sporting a Ferrari cap, and just grumbled that he couldn’t speak to Plant.

He approached Jenson Button’s car only to find he had buggered off – there was just a white umbrella sheltering the space where he should have been – so Brundle talked to his Dad instead. Old Man Button, looking like Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast has a permatan, shirt unbuttoned to his navel, and a twinkle in his eye.

Moving on, Brundle bottled out of interrupting Bernie Ecclestone as he was schmoosing the Global CEO of Banca Santander. Even Brundle knows better than to get between Bernie and a sponsor.

As always, he fell back on “Ruby” Barrichello, who is old enough to have been a teammate of Brundle, and so can always be called on for an interview when everyone else is shunning his attention.

I’m very conscious that I have written about twice as much about Martin Brundle’s shoddy interview technique as the high performance motor race, but you mine where the gold is.

Bahrain GP Qualifying

2009-04-25T19:15:00.000+01:00

As the last two races have been all about the rain, the Formula One authorities have hedged their bets on the rain and decamped to Bahrain, where there’s less chance of a thunderstorm than of Bernie Ecclestone playing in the NBA.

I’m joking of course – F1 is not in Bahrain because of the weather. It is there because of the money, as we were reminded with much footage of Bernie Ecclestone and the Crown Prince of Bahrain wandering around their tarmac playground, making jovial noises, and comparing the size of their relative entourages.

In the paddock, Eddie Jordan was back on the BBC team. There was a weak joke about his bus pass not reaching as far as Shanghai, and then they all carried on as if he’d never been away. As a license-fee payer, I am not satisfied with this explanation – where was he when the circus was in China? Has he done something to irritate the Chinese authorities? Has he spoken out about human rights in Tibet?

This week’s sycophantic Jordan interview was with the aforementioned Crown Prince… “This is the sixth time we’ve had a race here. Has it been as successful as you’d hoped?” It’s virtually pointless to even have this interview – they might as well just read out a press release. I would like to have asked him how welcome any gay Formula One fans would be this weekend, as homosexuality is still outlawed in this relatively progressive middle eastern country.

The BBC cameras followed our threesome of pundits as they strutted through the Red Bull garage and down the pit lane. It was like watching a hi-tech version of The West Wing as Jake, DC and Eddie waxed lyrical about Sebastian Vettel’s good start to the season..

The way the qualifying works, with the five slowest drivers dropping out after each of the first two sessions, means that there seems to always be one big name who judges it wrongly and gets knocked out early. This week it was Mark Webber, second in China, who left it till the last minute and got blocked on his qualifying lap, and will start at the back of the grid.

Ferrari got both their drivers into the last qualifying session and onto the grid in the top ten for the first time this season. After three races, they haven’t yet scored any points – they are one of the great names of F1’s rich history and, for the moment at least, they suck.

Chinese Grand Prix

2009-04-19T11:37:00.000+01:00

In the fortnight since the last Grand Prix, the teams have moved North to China, but the soap opera has been all over the place.

Lewis Hamilton’s woes have continued as the fallout from his disqualification have claimed the jobs of the top two people in the McLaren team. He is genuinely unpopular among his peers and I think I have an inkling why. If you watch him, you will see that, apart from when he is actually driving, his Dad never leaves his side, and apparently hasn’t done so since he was born. He has been with McLaren since he was a foetus. He is the motor racing equivalent of a home-schooled, twelve-year-old Oxbridge graduate. The bottom line is that he is fucking weird.

Meanwhile, the FIA court of Appeal cleared the Brawn diffuser, meaning that the first two races’ results will stand. If you are not following this, then don’t worry – Formula One increasingly resembles an episode of Lost.

The best part of the court case was seeing Ross Brawn leaving the hearing. In a suit and tie, I realised who he has been reminding me of all year. He is a slightly slimmer version of Uncle Monty from Withnail and I. Now I’m not going to be able to take him seriously ever again.

Before the race, a bloke called Mike Gaskell joined Jake and DC in the paddock – he was introduced as a technical boffin then proceeded to tell a toe-curling anecdote about Coulthard’s underpants. He is some former technical director, blah blah blah, years of experience, blah… Whatever, where the hell has Eddie Jordan gone? He was simply not mentioned, airbrushed from history like a modern-day Trotsky. I am expecting to see his body turn up on the news in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur with an ice pick in his head.

Since Malaysia, several cars have dropped the KERS, claiming that the weight of the battery makes it unworkable. Nice to see Formula One making that extra effort for the environment. Like everyone else, they are perfectly happy to be green, as long as it doesn’t cost too much or affect performance.

Speaking of Formula One’s vapid ethics, it’s also instructive to compare the hand-wringing that preceded the Olympics regarding the Chinese regime’s questionable human rights record, with the apparent lack of concern shown by the unstoppably rolling money-making machine of F1. I can’t imagine Bernie Ecclestone having many scruples – it wouldn’t surprise me if they engineered a publicity stunt, putting a Ferrari in Tiananmen Square with a white-shirted Chinese student holding his hand up in front of it.

The race itself started, as the last race finished, in the rain and behind the safety car. They all crocodiled along for eight laps before the race director got as bored as the rest of us and, despite the fact the conditions hadn’t changed at all, let them go for it. Overall, the race was a lot more exciting for being on a wet track – lousy visibility and poor grip make for a lot more fun. Perhaps they should spray the road throughout every race, creating artificial rain. Sounds like something the Abu Dhabi boys could waste some money on.

Sebastian Vettel, who won from pole position, seems like a thoroughly lovely young man. Being German and a bit fast, he is inevitably being compared to Michael Schumacher. Unlike the great champion, however, Vettel appears – for the time being at least – to possess human emotions. His delight at crossing the line, which was evident over the team radio, was rather endearing.

Before the race, a pre-recorded interview with Coulthard emphasised just how youthful Vettel looks. Is it a sign of getting old when you think Formula One drivers are getting younger these days?

Button finished third and remains top of the championship, but the real mystery remains, where is Eddie Jordan?

Smears, Jeers and Tears

2009-04-16T20:39:00.000+01:00

It’s not been a great week for the Government with the slowly unfolding email smears, and the Culture Minister being heckled at Anfield.

The story of the smearing emails has dragged on for far too long now, perpetuated by the media’s need for a new headline every day, and encouraged disgracefully by the hypocrite Tories parading their fragrant wives to take turns tut-tutting Gordon Brown and criticising him for employing someone who wasn’t perfect, then firing them straight away.

The truth is that there was absolutely nothing in those emails that I wouldn’t have expected someone in there to be discussing – ways to undermine opposition politicians are a government’s currency. I would be extremely surprised if there isn’t an equivalent operation in Tory Central Office – albeit with a slightly better firewall this week.

This is a great example of a media firestorm. A chap got caught sending an email he shouldn’t have, and he was fired. That genuinely is the end of the story. Everything that followed is 100% media-generated…

Tories are interviewed and their indignation is broadcast to the nation… Every day another titbit of information is released, despite the fact that it all reached the public domain in one chunk… Gordon Brown is asked to apologise and refuses, saying quite reasonably that he has done nothing wrong… Commentators start to talk of a “smear culture at the heart of our politics…” Vox pops are taken from members of the public, voicing their anger after spending three days being poked with the stick… Tories change tack, saying that things will be better when they are in charge, as though Blair didn’t say exactly the same thing (or Thatcher, for that matter)… Labour desperately tries to move on the agenda to the great work they are doing in healthcare, but this is drowned out by George Osborne’s bloody wife grabbing the headlines… Brown finally caves in and apologises, presumably just because he is so bored with the whole thing… Tories crow and claim a victory despite having achieved nothing save making every single voter slightly more nauseous.

I’m not surprised that Brown apologised, but it really is pathetic. He’s like a parent who threatens an unruly child with no pudding, only to cave in and let them have another French Fancy. It started with the on-off election after he took over from Blair but, this time, Brown’s apology has left his credibility is in tatters. He has caved in over and over again, to the point that, this time, everyone knew he would end up apologising, hence the unrelenting pressure. Why didn’t he do it a week ago? Now he is even weaker.

In an attempt to shift the headlines, Brown sent Culture Secretary, Everton fan, and Rimmel-model Andy Burnham to Anfield to tackle the Hillsborough Memorial Service. Poor old Burnham had no chance. In what must have been the most awkward moment of his career since he wore eye shadow on Question Time, his speech to the fans was drowned out by chanting Liverpool supporters demanding “Justice for the ninety-six.”

I have a lot of sympathy with Liverpudlians – any city that can boycott The Sun for twenty years is alright by me. But the endless singing is enough to grate on anyone. The service was ended with a 25,000 crowd joining Gerry Marsden in an emotional “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I don’t know what Boris Johnson was talking about…

Burnham stepped right up to the plate though by calling for the release of all unpublished evidence from the twenty-year old disaster. The cabinet minister and long-standing member of the government said, "I believe now the public interest lies very clearly in full disclosure of all such information, so that the families and others can make their judgement on all the facts."

Well hang on, Mr Burnham, which secretive bodies have been hiding this information. Who is covering it up? Surely that is something the government could have a look at. When he says that “further information should be published,” who is he addressing? Why doesn’t he just mention it to Jack Straw at the next cabinet meeting?

Champions' League

2009-04-14T21:50:00.000+01:00

Tonight, I watched the Liverpool – Chelsea Champions’ League match. My hope was for an early Liverpool goal to make a game of it, and they didn’t let me down. It was a terrific match with eight goals and more ups and downs than the Barclays share price.

Even without Gerrard, in the first half, Liverpool were all over Chelsea, who looked like a pub team. The second half started with Chelsea coming back – Guus Hiddink must have reminded them about their win bonuses at half time. And then Liverpool just started scoring again. Much talk of Istanbul and a great deal of singing from the away end. But in the end, Not-Fat Frank Lampard put Liverpool out of their misery and put Chelsea into the semi.

But this is the Steam Engine, not one of the thousand other blogs that will tell you how great the match was. Despite all the action, I was completely preoccupied during the action, because I noticed early on that the players’ names on the shirts were somehow different. After a few minutes, I figured it out – they are both using a different font for their European games.

In the Premier League, all teams have to employ the same mandated font to identify their players – it is preset by the league. In itself, this stultifyingly Orwellian rule is no surprise. I presume that Richard Scudamore has a shareholding in the company that provides these particular letters.

In European fixtures, however, the clubs appear free to use any font they like. In response to this freedom, they have reacted like the dazzled children in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and just gone crazy.

Liverpool are using a chunky, cartoony font which makes them look like the Why Don’t You XI, whereas Chelsea have gone for a cheery lower case job. I can’t begin to explain how much this sort of sloppy syntax annoys me, but what I can’t really figure out is why they are bothering.

The first reaction is that this has to be the most cynical marketing ploy of the season. But realistically, who would go out and buy a second shirt, identical in every way save for the font on the back? There might be the odd fan with more money than sense, but you have to give fans a little credit – there can’t be many of them who would fall for this. Certainly not enough to pay Didier Drogba’s wages for a week. Or even didier drogba’s.

The only other reason I can come up with is that they have a secretive sponsorship deal with the font itself. Perhaps the lower case franklin gothic font is secretly channelling funds into Chelsea in a bid to raise its profile and increase its use among Neighbourhood Watch newsletters in the ABC1 socio-economic groups. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.

Incidentally, ITV’s commentary continues to infuriate and amuse me in equal measure. There were the usual crow-barred stats and strangled metaphors, and if I had a pound for every time the away-goals rule was explained, I would be able to fly to Rome for the final. But when Liverpool had a corner, late in the first half, Clive Tyldesley said of Petr Cech that, “there must be an alarm bell ringing, somewhere beneath that protective helmet.” I don’t care who you support, that is a beautiful image right there.

Why I Love The North-East

2009-04-12T11:53:00.000+01:00

We managed to get rid of the boy this weekend, giving his loving grandparents the chance to fatten him up with Easter Eggs and unrestrained affection. Seizing the opportunity, Pam and I had a night away in a charming little hotel just outside Newcastle.

The Ravenscroft Arms is a huge pub with several bedrooms above a labyrinthine collection of dining rooms. Not quite in the middle of nowhere, it is planted just outside the A1 near Team Valley. This means that, if you face West, you see undulating countryside, villages and farmhouses, and the occasional car silently cresting a distant peak; but if you look East, you see an industrial wasteland; warehouses and railway sidings, over-passed by a motorway, and then, rising up behind it out of the valley, a residential area marked by tower blocks and terraces.

The Ravenscroft Arms is on the edge of nowhere, not in the middle.

When we arrived, we went for a short run, opting for the pretty route, and ran up into the hills, out of the valley on the green side, before doubling back and congratulating ourselves on having done a little physical labour before the gluttonous onslaught to come.

After a lovely evening that started early with a pint and one of those gastro-pub burgers bigger than Pam’s head, and finished with us both unconscious before half ten, we congratulated ourselves on having relaxed, shaking off the cares of work and the responsibilities of parenthood for at least one night.

In the morning, I woke up and decided to let Pam have a longer lie in by going out to buy a paper. I am not very good at lying quietly so the only way to avoid awakening the Kraken is to sail in the opposite direction. I had not seen any shops the previous day so decided to go the logical route and walk up into the residential area.

I crossed the railway, saying hello to a trainspotter who looked absolutely terrified of me. I know they are an odd bunch but I doubt that random strangers punch them in the street – why did he look so startled? It’s not like I was going to steal his trains.

Anyway, I then crossed the motorway and hiked up, out of the valley, into what I guess was part of Gateshead. I walked past a tower block and eventually found a row of three shops: a co-op, a newsagents, and a tanning shop. That is a Northern triumvirate, right there.

I went in the newsagents and took a copy of The Times to the counter. I should explain that I am usually a Guardian man but I am only human and have fallen for News International’s marketing ploy of giving away Pizza Express vouchers when you buy Saturday Times. I’m not proud of it, but I do like Pizza Express.

There was a lovely old chap behind the counter who, despite the fact there were four copies of The Times awaiting purchase on his bottom shelf, reacted as though he’d never seen the thing before in his life. “Eee, it’s a long time since we selt a Times, son. How much is that? One fifty? Bloody hell, that’s not cheap is it? Thanks, son. How, Joan, fella here buying the Times…”

There are some places where that reaction would make you feel awkward and apart, but in Newcastle, it was delivered with such warmth and affection that I felt part of the happy awe that greeted the purchase.

You wouldn’t get that in Peckham, Rio Ferdinand.

The BBC Gets It Right

2009-04-11T23:13:00.000+01:00

Football Focus this week “dedicated the show to the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster.” I must admit that my heart sank when Manish introduced the show thus. I expected that Football Focus would make an almighty mess of this. I did them a disservice.

They had produced a fifteen minute, Sue Johnstone-narrated documentary using a great deal of the original footage, and interviews of victims’ families and witnesses. It was pitch-perfect – factual, emotional without being self-indulgent, and truly affecting.

Even Motson did well. A witness to the unfolding tragedy, he pitched his account beautifully and, save a solitary catch in his voice, he didn’t resort to emotional cliché.

Alan Hansen then presented a touching retrospective where he interviewed former team-mates who, like him, were on the pitch as the disaster began; and who, like him, spent the next few weeks attending funerals, and the next twenty years trying to reconcile what they had seen.

We saw John Barnes walking solemnly behind a coffin, Barry Venison at the cathedral service; and we heard John Aldridge on the verge of tears as he related to Hansen the stories of incomprehensible grief.

Lawrenson was given very little to do, which was a good idea because, even in his funeral suit, the man’s capacity to say the wrong thing is simply not worth the risk.

BBC commentator Steve Wilson who, as a young Liverpool supporter, was in the ground that day, was given license to stray from the party line and criticise the authorities’ response on the day and in the intervening years. In a calm voice, he condemned the behaviour of South Yorkshire police on the day, and of the perceived closing ranks of the authorities since then.

The truth is that nobody has ever been brought to account for what happened that day and, in the era of blame culture, that is extraordinary.

In this blog, I am quick to criticise the BBC, their sports department in particular. What’s more, I have a contrary tendency when it comes to public displays of grief. However, I am happy to say that, on this occasion, the BBC got it just right.

David Haye Sets a Date

2009-04-06T21:55:00.000+01:00

It’s surprising, when talking to friends and family, how few people have heard of David Haye, much less seen him in action. All this despite the fact he has all the pre-requisites for the modern boxer – the hand speed of a Mexican welterweight, the power of the most clubbing of heavyweights, and the mouth of Mohammed Ali.

No stranger to the dark arts of self-promotion, the “Hayemaker” promotes his own fights, negotiates his own deals, and sells his own merchandise. He has fought on Sky and, in the era of Calzaghe and Hatton, he has stayed hidden from the wider British public.

Having come up through the ranks at cruiserweight, he beat Frenchman Jean-Marc Mormeck to take a world title before knocking out Enzo Maccarinelli to become undisputed champion. All the while, he grumbled about making the 200lb limit so it was no surprise that he left his cruiserweight titles behind and moved up to heavyweight.

What is a surprise is that, in only his second fight at the top weight, he will be fighting for the world title.

With a combination of his talent and his talk, he has forced him onto the agenda of the Klitschko brothers – the Ukrainian monsters who hold most of the cards in the alphabet soup of world titles, and are recognised as the dominant force of post-Lennox Lewis heavyweights.

This week, contracts were signed for a June fight against Wladimir Klitschko. No shrinking violet, Haye greeted the news with great confidence. ”I’ve been studying Wladimir for years. I know him better than he knows himself. I guarantee I’ll knock him out – I’m his worst nightmare.”

It could be Ali before the Liston fight – the smaller man against the established champ, talking himself up at every opportunity. If he can do it, he’ll be World Heavyweight Champion. You’ll have heard of him then.

Malaysian Grand Prix

2009-04-05T22:04:00.000+01:00

This was a race ruled by the rain. Even before it began, there was debate over when it would arrive, what the tyre strategy should be, who would be the beneficiary. When it arrived, it was biblical – as everyone said at length, “these cars are simply not designed to drive in these conditions.”

As soon as the first drops started, the race became all about tyres and pit stops. Frankly, it was incomprehensible – I had no idea what was going on, and I don’t think the commentators did either. At one point, Jonathan Legard shouted excitedly that Sebastian Vettel “has gone off AGAIN!” only for Martin Brundle to calm him down by pointing out it was a replay.

Eventually the race was abandoned but not after half an hour of waiting whilst the cars lined up on the grid, waiting for the clouds to blow over, mechanics running around like rabbits in the rain, drivers looking disgruntled under umbrellas, and Mark Webber, drivers’ shop steward, out of his car and marching around telling everyone who’d listen that conditions were unsafe to drive.

It was a total shambles, and through no fault of the organisers, the whole thing was exactly the sort of thing which switches off the viewing public. Just for the sake of the spectacle, they should have told Webber to belt up and get them going round a few more times to see which was the last car on the track. I don’t pay my licence fee for this. Not in my name, Gordon Brown!

Anyway, as has been the way so far this season, the pre-race entertainment was far better than the race itself. Today, they featured an interview with “F1 Supremo” Bernie Ecclestone. It seems that he has changed his name by deed-pole because he is now referred to consistently as F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone. The BBC clearly thought that using a professional journalist to do the job would have produced a result not quite sycophantic enough, and so they sent Eddie Jordan – a man whose permatan says much of the debt he owes to Ecclestone.

Clearly Jordan’s incisive grilling last week of Richard Branson – “Can I just say that what you’ve done here for formula one is wonderful…?” – had convinced his new employers that he was the man to winkle out the truth from Ecclestone. Sure enough, the interview was conducted on a narrow couch, with Jordan reclined like a Roman senator with bad dress sense. Ecclestone sat alongside him, perched on the end of the couch like a hobbit, his hairy feet not quite reaching the floor. Apart from being tiny, the thing about Ecclestone is that he is as ancient as Methuselah. With his white hair and glasses, he looks like a dowager duchess at a fancy dress party.

The other part of the pre-race routine with which I am not entirely comfortable is the Brundle grid-walk. He wanders around, dragging a poor cameraman with him, just getting up in everyone’s face and interfering. The grid is a remarkably public place, right up to seconds before the start of the race; there are models, family, hangers-on, and sponsors all poking and prodding at the cars and drivers. Still, though, it just feels intrusive when Brundle elbows his way in, thrusts a microphone under Jenson Button’s nose, and asks him how he feels.

Being live and dangerous, it’s high-risk TV and the occasional scoop is far outweighed by the clunky pauses and embarrassing rebuffs. Timo Glock didn’t even open his eyes as Brundle swept past him yelling questions.

The climax came as he jumped around the back of the Toyota, trying to get a good look at their new diffuser. Five mechanics were surrounding it, clearly unimpressed with the mike and camera. “This is a public area,” pleaded Bundle, “I can be here if I want.” The mechanics silently stood in front of the camera and we all moved on.

Malaysian Qualifying

2009-04-04T16:29:00.000+01:00

It’s a measure of how the Formula One bug has caught me this year that I found myself watching the qualifying from Malaysia this morning. Even fifteen years ago (the last period that I found myself following the World’s Greatest Traffic Jam™), I never managed to watch the qualifying. Partly because this was before the era of the red button, and the BBC were far too busy on Saturday afternoons showing rugby or athletics or cricket or darts or snooker, or one of the many other sports they no longer carry. But also partly because I thought that watching the qualifying was like going to St James on a rainy Friday night to watch the reserves – it takes you lurching over the line that separates a fan from a fanatic.

Since the end of the Australian Grand Prix, the storm has been swirling around Lewis Hamilton (“Liar Lewis” according to The Sun). To cut a long story short, there were some overtaking shenanigans while the safety car was out during the last lap of the Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton’s crime, however, was lying to the stewards about what had been said and done. As a result, he was retrospectively disqualified.

What makes me laugh is that Formula One has to be the most heavily recorded sport in the world – there are cameras dotted around the car like freckles and, the real belter, all communications between team and driver are recorded and broadcast live. So when Hamilton said, “I was NOT told to let Trulli overtake me,” he would have got away with it but for the fact the chief steward went home and watched the video.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, of course. He must have cried himself all the way home to his Swiss mansion. But for the engine noise, you could have heard the other drivers sniggering into their helmets.

The BBC covered this whole shambles with a montage sequence, underscored with mournful strings. It gave the impression Hamilton had been killed by a brain haemorrhage, not got caught telling a silly lie. Honestly, this is the Formula One equivalent of a nine year old boy standing by a broken window saying, “Wasn’t me…”

The BBC, presumably having read my blog last week, also took the opportunity to explain KERS in a bit more depth. From the in-depth analysis of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (so now I know what it stands for), I gleaned that it uses special mystical trickery to capture the energy wasted in braking, it stores it in a magic box, and then this can be released, literally at the push of a button.

F1 is laughingly trying to market this as a green initiative. Their (valid) argument is that the energy previously wasted as heat is recycled and put back into the car. What they don’t say is that the energy is generated in the first place by their V8 four-stroke engines. Even Branson has used this environmental hypocrisy it to justify his triumphal entry into the sport.

As to its effectiveness, the BBC’s pundits are unconvinced: Coulthard reckons that it is a disadvantage for heavier drivers, Jordan says it is “antiquated technology”.

The qualifying session itself has changed a great deal since my day. They now have a series of shorter sessions after which they eliminate the last five drivers until they’re left with the fastest, who run off for pole position.

The FIA have further complicated matters by stating that at the end of this convoluted process, they have moved Sebastian Vettel back ten places for causing an accident in the last race; and they have moved Rubens Barrichello back five places for having a new gearbox.

It’s so much more accessible these days.

Bottom of The Barrel

2009-04-01T21:39:00.000+01:00

Like a balding horseman of the Apocalypse, the BBC’s most boring Alan is riding into Newcastle’s relegation battle. As the season slumps from bad to worse to Hughton, the fans are so resigned that they have even accepted Mike Ashley coming back to the ground without screaming abuse at him and his children.

And so to repay their faltering faith, he has given them what they want and what they deserve – the new messiah, the officer-commanding of the Toon Army. Alan Shearer.

Now I accept that I might be wrong about this, but my prediction is that Shearer will be a colossal failure as a manager. He will certainly fail to meet expectations, because those expectations have been growing steadily since he stopped playing. Ever since his final studs-up challenge and his injury-hastened retirement, he has been proposed as the saviour of the club. With every incompetent half-wit that has been dismissed from the position, his stock has risen further and further.

I say I could be wrong, because he is fundamentally untested. Appointing him manager is taking a chance as big as Middlesbrough appointing Bryan Robson, or Spurs appointing Paul Gascoigne, or anyone at all appointing Tony Adams. Ever.

Being a great player is NOT a qualification to be a great manager. There is even an argument that it mitigates against. The main criticism of Glen Hoddle when he was Swindon manager was that he couldn’t communicate what he wanted from the players because he simply couldn’t understand why they couldn’t play as well as him. A great player who, even in his forties, was unable to relate to players without his talent.

The Italians understand this. When Luca Vialli was appointed Chelsea manager, there was shock in his mother country. The respect in which Vialli the player was held was unquestionable, but the very idea he could become a top flight manager without serving any sort of apprenticeship was anathema.

Of course, Shearer is no idiot and has finally accepted the role knowing that he’s in a no-lose situation. If Newcastle go down, it will be Mike Ashley’s fault, and if they stay up, he will be the master of the geordie universe.

Australian Grand Prix

2009-03-29T11:39:00.000+01:00

The first Grand Prix of the new season took place this morning. Moved to the early evening in Melbourne to allow the mother country to get up and watch over breakfast, you’d be forgiven for forgetting there was an actual race happening, so self-satisfied was the BBC coverage.

Having wrestled back the rights to “the world’s biggest car chase” from ITV, the BBC set about rubbing it in, with constant reminders that their coverage would be “uninterrupted,” and pre-race graphics that were so blatant, I expected Gandalf and Frodo to be on the back row of the grid.

The coverage is fronted by Jake Humphrey, a former kids’ TV presenter who has done the rounds of the BBC backwaters sport coverage. Graveyard shifts at the Olympics, and substitute appearances for Manish on Football Focus have paid off and the big lad – he appears to be nine feet tall – has now got his big break.

As his paddock side-kicks, the BBC has gone high-profile, it’s stars selected for their name-recognition and access to former colleagues, rather than any kind of broadcasting experience or talent. David Coulthard, who appears to insist on being called DC, is bringing his massive jaw line to bear on the pit lane, along with former team boss Eddie Jordan who can be described, at best, as a gobshite.

Incidentally, Jake started off called him David, deliberately not playing the game. But someone must have had a word during the race because he Was DCing with the rest of them after the race. I wonder if Coulthard had his people ring the head of BBC Sport during a pit stop, it might be in his contract that everyone has to refer to him on air exclusively as DC. I believe John Terry has a similar clause in his Chelsea contract.

Going for quality in the actual commentary box, the BBC got it right with Jonathan Legard, transferred in after years of experience at Five Live, and Martin Brundle, forgiven for defecting to ITV and brought back into the fold.

Even with all their experience, though, Legard and Brundle failed – in the same way as everyone else involved – to satisfactorily explain the new regulation changes. This is what makes F1 so bizarre, they introduce new rules so arcane and impenetrable, that even the teams themselves don’t figure them out till June, and so the first few races end up being decided either in the research and development areas of the garages, or in the courtroom.

Having watched an hour of build up and a two hour race, I will now summarise what I have learned about the regulations for the 2009 season:
1. The cars have a new diffuser on the back, which is designed to reduce the total load by 50%.
2. This looks a bit like a George Foreman grill.
3. Some teams have got one particular design of diffuser, others have a different design. More like a Breville Sandwich Maker.
4. The former claim the latter’s design is illegal and are appealing to the proper authorities.
5. The appeal will be heard in two weeks so the results of the first two races may change. I would like a cheese and bacon toastie.
6. The front wing now has to be the same width as the car itself. This, we are told, makes the cars look ugly. They look the same as they did last year.
7. Launch control is now banned. This appears to mean that, at the start, the car has to be started by the driver and not by a computer. You might be amazed that this has to be in the rules. It’s like saying, “a driver must not gain an unfair advantage by invoking the powers of dark magick and cursing the tyres of his rivals.”
8. Some of the cars are using the KERS system. This is some sort of button the driver can press in order to gain extra horse power for six seconds per lap.
9. I don’t know how it works or even what KERS stands for.
10. Neither, apparently, does Martin Brundle.
11. Some of the cars have not bothered with KERS, so it can’t be that great.
12. Tyres with green stripes are “super-soft.” They are crap.

So there you go. All pretty simple, isn’t it.

Incidentally, the race emphasised the importance of having a good car. Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello came first and second in the Brawn GP cars – Ross Brawn is recognised as the pre-eminent genius of F1, and so it’s no surprise that he should be the one to figure out the new rules before anyone else.

I got the impression that Brawn could have taken a Shetland Pony, strapped its little hooves to the wheel, and made him BBC Sport Personality of the Year before Christmas comes around.

Lewis Hamilton is suddenly driving a Ford Focus and is exposed as being rubbish. Of course, he is no worse a driver than he was in winning the World Championship last year, but he qualified very poorly and, despite racing brilliantly, only managed fourth place. Maybe the car will get better as McLaren figure out the rules, but it does make you realise that the championship is decided in the lab and the pit lane, as much as out on the track.

Six Nations

2009-03-22T06:24:00.000Z

I took Thomas for a walk yesterday and, after teaching him about canals and locks (“like a lift for boats”), we walked across towards Stanley and came across a couple of teams of kids playing rugby. We hung around and watched until Thomas got bored, and I must confess to a nostalgic lump in my throat.

I would guess these lads were no more than nine or ten, and their efforts were scrappy at best, but it was great to see them running around with abandon, and throwing themselves into tackles with harmless gusto. There was even the one freakish boy, a foot taller and four stones heavier than the rest – the whole objective of his team being to pass to him. Enjoy it while it lasts, big lad, in three years time, these boys will be growth spurting their way through puberty and you’ll just be a fat kid.

Most of the forwards were wearing skull caps though – I’m not sure whether this is mandatory these days, or they are just copying what they see on television. It seemed a bit excessive for the level of skill on display, but I suppose a fractured skull doesn’t take much talent to sustain.

I had forgotten all about this mild diversion until I watched the England – Scotland game on the BBC in the afternoon. It’s the last round of the Six Nations and the title was being decided later in Cardiff, both England and Scotland being out of the running.

I was struck, as I watched England’s forwards constantly turnover Scotland’s ball, that the Scottish pack, when up against the England boys, looked like a bunch of kids. I don’t mean this to sound insulting – the fact that the game finished only 26-12 is testament to how well they played, and particularly defended) against a gang of men who, to the casual observer, looked an average of 20% bigger than their opposite numbers.

Chris Paterson, Scotland’s kicking full-back, is a tiny fella – only twelve and a half stones with wet hair and a pocketful of loose change. He was tackled at one point by Mike Tindall. Tindall may be about to marry into the royal family, and I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke, but he has all the physical characteristics of the big red one out of the Fantastic Four. It just looked like the big kid on the team bullying one of the others.

Just like the kids on the field in Stanley, the Scottish lads had gallons of enthusiasm but made lots of mistakes and, despite having all the right kit, they looked like they weren’t exactly sure of what they were doing. The question is how England’s expensively assembled brutes made them look so good.

Greatest Living Yorkshiremen – 1. Michael Vaughan

2009-03-19T22:10:00.000Z

A momentous day today in English cricket. Michael Vaughan scored his first century for Yorkshire in over five years. Okay, it was just a hit and giggle match against Surrey in Abu Dhabi, but the fact is that one of our greatest sons is back in the saddle and scoring runs.

The England selectors have never closed the door to a return to the fold. All they have stipulated is that he needs to be scoring runs, and now he is. Although there is a part of me that would like to see him bat all season for Yorkshire, I know he deserves to be back in the England team.

When it comes to a comprehensive list of Greatest Living Yorkshiremen, you simply have to have a cricketer in there. There are those who quote Boycott as the quintessential Yorkshireman, but, although I have a grudging respect for him, he is held in scant affection by anyone inside or outside the county. Spending twenty years in a slow, remorseless pursuit of runs, followed by thirty years of telling everyone why they are not as good as you at doing it, does not a hero make.

For about fifteen years, Darren Gough held sway in my affections as favourite cricketer and a true great man of Yorkshire. His casual indifference to authority or reputation, and his pinpoint Yorkers made him a legend. But a series of events started to tarnish my affection for him. First he moved to Essex, recklessly abandoning the county of his birth simply for the convenience of being close to his two sons. Next, he decided not to tour Pakistan with the England side, preferring instead to remain in Britain and go on that dreadful dancing programme.

This had the effect of introducing him to a wider audience, broadening his appeal and moving him onto a career path that would culminate in a spandex body-suit, pushing Vanessa Feltz through a hole in a polystyrene wall whilst Dale Winton shrieked from the sidelines. It is fair to say that, by the time of this humiliation, my affections had moved on.

So Vaughan it is who fills the cricketing berth in my pantheon of greats. Captain of county and country, dignified and majestic, if a little over-fond of the odd bit of management-speak bullshit. What a guy.

Introducing Tyson Fury

2009-03-15T15:18:00.000Z

While Amir Khan was announcing himself to the world on Saturday night by beating up Marco Antonio Barrera, I was sitting sulkily at home refusing to pay £15 to fall asleep in front of Sky’s pay-per-view evening.

By way of consolation, ITV4 had an interesting evening of domestic boxing, the bill-topper of which was the British Middleweight Title. The highlight for me though, was this young heavyweight who is making waves and, I reckon, is going to be the next big star of British Boxing.

His name is Tyson Fury – and truly there was never a better name for a boxer. This is his real name, by the way – he comes from a from a family of Irish travellers with boxing in the blood. Grandfather “Gypsy John” Fury was a heavyweight contender in the eighties, and his uncle Hughie is his trainer. With that heritage, small wonder he was named after Mike Tyson – the self-styled “baddest man on the planet.”

Tyson is now four fights into his professional career and, having knocked over a couple of nobodies, this weekend, he took apart Lee Swaby. Swaby is by no means the greatest boxer in the world, but he’s a tough cookie who has been in with the best, stopped Enzo Maccarinelli, and fought for British Titles at Cruiserweight. Fury fought him to a standstill. At the end of the fourth, the fight was knocked out of Swaby, and he retired on his stool.

The striking thing about Fury is that, despite his fearsome stature – 6’8” in his socks – despite his terrific speed and heavy-handedness, despite the ominous career path he is already describing to the world, he comes across as just a lovely lad.

Despite his size, and the stubbly growth on his chin, he still looks like the dopey tall kid in class who didn’t know his own strength. He mouths off about David Price (recent Olympian, former amateur opponent and, like Fury, new to the professional ranks) having no chin, but he does it with such a boyish grin, that you just want to ruffle his hair (if you could reach it).

He is fighting again on the undercard of Carl Froch’s showdown with Jermain Taylor next month and, with ITV heavily trailing him as the next big star, I think you will be hearing more about him soon.

Doppelganger

2009-03-11T19:27:00.000Z

I went to see a customer today who looked and sounded EXACTLY like Jonathan Agnew. It was so uncanny that I started doing a Geoffrey Boycott impression to fit in. He wanted to know about extending his overdraft and I told him that he didn't need that as, "me granny could run this business within t'existing facilitee." Fortunately, I happen to know that the real Agnew is in Trinidad at the moment, and not running a shop in Ilkley.

Obviously, I was on duty so didn't mention the fact that he was quite clearly the evil twin of the BBC's cricket correspondent. But I was dying to ask him if it was a cross he constantly bears. At least Agnew is not a celebrity in the modern sense of the word - I suspect that he is not assailed constantly by octogenarian autograph hunters as he swans around Ilkley. Imagine if you were the living double of Cheryl Cole - you wouldn't get out of the house before people started hassling you, requesting photos, proffering autograph books, and tactfully not mentioning the whole "assault occasioning actual bodily harm" thing.

I think it would make an interesting feature - people who have to live their lives constantly being mistaken for someone else. I am not talking about people who make a living out of being lookalikes - that's boring. I mean people who are just, by the random wave of nature's fickle hand, cursed to be mistaken for someone more famous.

So do you know anyone who falls into this category - I'll interview them and make them famous. Oh hang on, they might not like that. Okay I'll interview them and put their story on here and seven people will read it.

Names to me by the end of Michaelmas term, please.

Liverpool End Real's Season

2009-03-11T07:17:00.000Z

How thrilling and irrepressible Liverpool looked last night as they annihilated Real Madrid. A 4-0 victory is quite a result, but the nature of it was incredible.

They looked dangerous every time they had the ball. There were moments in the first half where the Real Madrid players were running around like frightened fourth years playing the first XI. Every time Liverpool moved the ball forward, it looked like they could score. And they did.

Gerrard was at his irrepressible best, Albiola had a great game rushing down the right flank. Even Dirk Kuyt wasn’t rubbish. But, as always, I only had eyes for one man. The beautiful Fernando Torres, with his deft flicks, his dead eye for goal, and his sculpted porcelain cheekbones.

I have such a crush on Nando.

The whole Real back four will be not so keen on him though. He made Pepe look a complete fool for the first goal, he hounded Cannavaro and Sergio Ramos throughout the game, but watching him wind up Gabriel Heinze alone made it worth listening to Jim Beglin for two hours. Three of them were booked, Heinze conceded a dubious penalty and, at one point, looked like his head was going to burst with the sheer, unmitigated unfairness of it all.

Throughout, Nando floated on like a swan on the Serpentine. Graceful, determined, and pure as the driven snow.

The best moment was early on when his first touch for once let him down. Pepe came away with the ball and crossed the half-way line. Pausing to look up and pick a pass, he was stunned as Torres surged around him and dispossessed him. Considering this was his first game back from injury, that was a hell of a run. You can’t imagine Robinho or Berbatov doing that. The crowd appreciated it and it summed up Liverpool’s outlook for the night.

Rafa Benitez says it is not as easy as people think to do well in Europe. Unfortunately last night, his team made it look very easy.

ITV’s Woeful Presentation of Sport (Again)

2009-03-08T11:29:00.000Z

Got up this morning, as I do every Sunday morning, planning to watch Match of The Day. I tend to record it on the Saturday night and watch that version rather than the Sunday am version that the BBC broadcast. This enables me to watch it a time convenient to me, and also saves me the bother of fast-forwarding through the nonsense “community feature” that they insist on dropping in. I am not paying my licence fee to watch Mikkel Arteta struggling to read kids stories to scouse schoolchildren.

This was of course, all for nothing, because it is FA Cup weekend. This means that Gary and the Alans get a week off and we all decamp to ITV to watch how football would be covered if the production rights were given to a bunch of young offenders doing community service because they had been deemed to retarded for conventional custody.

That dreadful title sequence rolls, which attempts to compare the history of the FA Cup with the glorious proletarian thread of industry which makes Britain great. It actually ends up making the trophy resemble some piece of horrendous “public art,” like the monstrous white horse they are going to put up on the South Downs.

In the studio, we have the omnipresent Jim Rosenthal – surely it’s just a matter of time before he gets a crack at the Countdown job – and Robbie Earle, looking beautiful in a powder blue cardigan. Standards have been allowed to slip everywhere, but surely this is a dress-down too far – my wife has a cardigan identical to this. Earle used to play for Wimbledon, for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t see Vinny Jones in a pink shirt or Lawrie Sanchez wearing a pair of Italian loafers.

On to the action and they managed to mount their cameras in the right place this time, unlike a previous round where footage from Fratton Park (a Premiership ground, mind you), appeared to have been shot from the lower tier of the West Stand.

First, to Craven Cottage, and an altercation between Clint Dempsey and Wayne Rooney was greeted with a chuckling political metaphor from Clive Tyldesley. “So much for the special relationship,” he drawled. “It nearly broke down there, despite the best efforts of Brown and Obama…”

At best that is a vapid and patronising reference to the fact that we have one of those American chappies over here playing football. Even Jim Beglin kept a tactful silence.

But when it comes to lazy pre-scripted commentary, Tyldesley has nothing on Peter Drury. Commentating from The Ricoh Arena, he deliciously told us that, “they have had 40,000 fans in here to see the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and today there are 31,500 to see Coventry take on Chelsea.” This meaningless stat was dropped in like a depth charge among the action and neither justified nor qualified. I was left shouting, “SO WHAT?” at the screen.

Sir Alex Ferguson won’t speak to the BBC due to some perceived slight they perpetrated on his son years ago. If I were him, I would boycott ITV simply because they are incompetent.

Chess on Grass

2009-02-28T20:45:00.000Z

There are those who believe the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. I disagree. I reckon the devil’s greatest trick was Twenty20 cricket.

Last night I watched a replay of New Zealand’s victory over India from Wellington. A meaningless match in a format I pretend to dislike, between two teams about which I couldn’t give a monkey’s cuss. But a match-winning innings by Brendon McCullum, an aggressive Indian bowling attack prompting a late Kiwi collapse, and a victory coming on literally the last ball of the match meant I was enthralled.

Today I am watching the England / West Indies Test from Barbados. I am delighted to say that, in direct comparison, it is splendidly dull. This illustrates perfectly the dilemma in cricket between the traditionalist and the moderniser.

The moderniser will tell you that Test cricket is long-winded, intricate to the point of incompehension, and virtually inpenetrable to the non-believer. Cricket must, they will argue, adapt to survive in the new era of multi-channel, low-attention-span, red-buttonness. If cricket is to succeed in attracting a new generation of supporters, they will protest, it must “give the fans what they want.”

I, however, find myself in the camp of the traditionalist. The beauty of cricket lies in its intricacy. No other game can possibly spend so long discussing small variations in the atmospheric moisture levels.

I also believe that Test cricket is long-winded, intricate to the point of incompehension, and virtually inpenetrable to the non-believer. But that’s the way I like it. I love the fact that Nasser Hussain and Michael Holding can talk uninterupted for fifteen minutes about the condition of one side of the ball without once mentioning the international sport going on in front of them. And they can do that whilst missing absolutely nothing.

A game that takes five days to play out requires a level of commitment and concentration in the viewer that is sorely lacking in this day and age. Casual observers need not apply.

If you want bitesize entertainment, I recommend a Milky Way. Twenty20 is not what the fans want, it is what the fans deserve.