Every November I seem to find myself at Hillsbrough. Emma has family and friends that live over there and the whole family are Sheffield Wednesday fans. Quite why it is always a weekend in November I'm not sure. Her brother's birthday is at the end of November but he has been in the Navy and so is not always there. Her mum's birthday is the beginning of December so maybe it is that, but we never seem to make a big deal of it being her birthday and she doesn't often come to the football with us. Emma's dad stopped taking her along when she spent one match with her back to the game watching the crowd.
Last year it was Bristol City. It was a dire game. A 0-0 draw which had me scratching my head as to how the sheed-heads had managed to climb into the Championships top six at that point. They didn't stay there long and on that evidence it is easy to see why. Wednesday were no better that day. Twice I have seen them play Carlisle United in League One in November, one a dismal 1-0 defeat and the other a glorious 2-1 win in which Mikael Antonio's goal secured promotion to the Championship. I've seen Wednesday go three down in little more than half an hour to Bolton Wanderers, and I have seen them outplay and beat a Huddersfield Town team which is not much different from the one which beat Wolves 2-0 in the Premier League only a couple of days ago. It's been a bit of a mixed bag but it has almost always been November. The only Wednesday games I can remember going to that were not in November were a 1-0 win at Wigan one New Year weekend two or three years ago, a 4-2 League One playoff final win over Hartlepool United at Cardiff in 2005 and a turgid 1-0 Championship playoff final defeat to Hull City in 2016.
This year it is Derby County. Emma and I have a friend, Mark, who was at university with us at Barnsley and who now works as a sports writer in the local Derby press. He meets up with us before he has to head to the ground to start working on the game. We meet at the Old Crown Inn on Penistone Road, about a 10-minute push (walk) from Hillsbrough. It takes the staff fully 10 minutes to open the accessible door at the side of the pub even though it is midday when we arrive and the place has been open for nearly an hour. I think I am right in saying that it's a fire door too. But nobody can find the right key for it. In an emergency there's not much hope for anyone at the Old Crown Inn.
It's good to be getting here early. Usually we arrive a little after 1.00 and the place is already chock full by then. We tend to find ourselves squeezing on to the end of someone else's table or else everyone but me (obviously) has to remain standing which makes good coversation difficult. Have you tried having a conversation with someone in a busy pub when they are stood up and you are sat down? The difficulty of doing this is one of the principal reasons why wheelchair users feel socially excluded. The chats go on two feet above your head so you don't hear them properly, and any attempt you make to join in can often be in vain. It is still not quite 12.00 when we sit at our table with only one other group of about two or three people for compan in the lounge.
Roland, Emma's dad, remarks that this bit is often the best bit about getting together for a Wednesday game. He's joking but its hard to argue. This is the bit were hope still exists. Where a slip from Tom Lees hasn't yet ruined your day. And for all its door-opening incompetence I can't fault the Old Crown Inn for its beer. It serves Guinness, which is my tipple of choice ever since my trip to Dublin to see Joss Stone last October for my birthday. The hotel we are staying in, the Holdiay Inn Express, does not. It serves dreadful lager which I'm worried will not agree with my currently highly temperemental stomach. Today is Saturday and I spent half of Thursday night awake with it again. Happily it is not affected by Guinness. Guinness makes everything better.
Unfortunately Mark can't stay around long but he's still there when a group of hi-viz-jacketed people come in and begin taking photographs of the Wednesday pictures on the pub's walls. I learn later that they are from the Czech Republic but I have no clue what brings them to Sheffield for the visit of Frank Lampard's side. I can't imagine Adam Reach is popular in Prague but then the world is an ever-shriking place in the age of the internet so perhaps he is. One of the photographs on the wall is of particular interest to me because it depicts the different kits worn by Wednesday since their formation in 1867. I didn't know that back then they wore blue and white horizontal hoops more in the style of a Reading or a QPR than the vertical stripes we associate with them now. I'd bet good money that if Wednesday released a kit with that design for the start of the 2019-20 season there would be scores of people on their online forums and websites complaining about how tradition has been obliterated with the loss of vertical stripes, not realising the history behind the hoops. We have a similar problem at Saints. I'm as guilty as anyone of complaining if a new kit is released that doesn't feature a red vee but the truth is the red vee with which the club is now synonomous was only used from around the 1960s. Before that Saints traditional shirt design was white with a red band similar to what Hull KR sometimes wear.
Today we are in the Kop. The view is behind the goal, which I don't mind so much, but at ground level which I don't like. We are away to one side, not far from the corner flag. Pre-game I bump into a former team-mate of mine from my time at Steelers Wheelchair basketball club in Sheffield. He's a season ticket holder of many years so it is no surprise to see him here but today we are sitting in different stands and still manage to cross paths. This is either a startling coincidence or Hillsbrough could do with a few more options in the area of accessible toileting. The teams are just being announced when we settle in to our seats so I don't catch all of both line-ups. What I do notice is that Lees is playing and I'm immediately nervous.
Wednesday's state of health has been a subject of some conjecture under the current manager Jos Lukuhay. The Dutchman has been in charge since January after spells with Cologne, Paderborn, Borussia Monchengladbach, Augsburg, Hertha Berlin and Stuggart in Germany. It is fair to say he has not quite found the right formula in that time. At kick-off Wednesday are 17th in the table and showing more signs of becoming embroiled in a relegation battle than they are of threatening the playoff places. That can change in the notoriously competetive Championship but the early signs aren't good under Lukuhay.
To be fair he has been hampered by injuries to his squad with the likes of Fernando Forestieri, Kieran Lee, Gary Hooper and Barry Bannon all having had spells on the sidlelines during his reign but nobody can figure out why Kieren Westwood isn't in the side. Westwood was arguably the best goalkeeper in the Championship last year but has mysteriously vanished, his place taken by Cameron Dawson. The theory is that there is some financial implication involved in continuing to select Westwood, some clause in his contract that would be triggered by his reaching a certain number of appearances. Meanwhile Jordan Rhodes has scored five goals for top of the table Norwich City who he was allowed to join on loan in the summer. His place at the apex of Wednesday's attack is today taken by Lucas Joao, a talented player but one who defines the term 'flatters to deceive'. Stephen Fletcher, a goalscorer for Scotland during their international break win over Albania, is absent presumed injured. Andrew, Emma's brother, informs me that Fletcher recently had a hair transplant so here's hoping that everything is still going ok with the new barnet.
Forestieri is restored behind Joao after a similarly strange spell of absence from the reckoning, while at fullback Ash Baker is making only his ninth appearance at the expense of Liam Palmer. Ninety minutes later I'm not totally sold on the idea that Baker, A Welsh under-19 and under-21 international, is an upgrade on Palmer. Michael Hector partners Lees in the centre of the defence with Morgan Fox at left-back behind a midfield of Reach, Bannan and Joey Pelupessy. Morgan Fox is a great name. The name of someone who might be the central character in a television crime drama, or equally a children's cartoon sheep-bothering pest. It's a versatile moniker. I know little about Pelupessy but having seen him play a few times I can't tell you how much I prefer Lee as a footballer. Pelupessy does nothing for me but then I didn't rate Reach until this year when he suddenly stopped taking a touch like a baby rhino and instead began conducting his own goal of the season competition. I'm prepared to accept that there is room for improvement in Pelupessy just as there has been in Reach.
Lampard is of course still a darling of the media and so attention is far more focused on his Derby side than it might otherwise be. For a Liverpool fan like me there is a lot of Anfield-related interest in his side with loanee Harry Wilson joined in the County starting 11 by ex-reds Scott Carson in goal and Andre Wisdom at right-back. Mason Mount is on loan from Chelsea and is one of the most promising midifelders in the country who should be able to develop in that position under one of its greatest ever English exponents. Up front Jack Marriott started at Ipswich Town but has bounced around the lower leagues before arriving from Peterborough United ealier this year. He's managed four goals from 12 appearances before today and is the central focus of a front three also featuring Wilson and Florian Jozefzoon, a Dutch under-19 and under-21 international originally from French Guiana. He played for both Ajax and PSV Eindhoven before making his name in English football with Brentford last season.
As you would expect from a Lampard side Derby look to keep the ball on the floor more than most teams at this level and are quite handy at it. Yet they don't have much cutting edge in the opening exchanges. If anything Wednesday have the better of it and it looks like a surprise could be on the cards when they open the scoring after just 12 minutes. Reach is played in by Bannon and slots coolly past former Wednesday stopper Carson in the County goal. Derby were pounded 3-0 by Aston Villa in their last game before the international break and at this point it looks like their lofty league positon might not be a true reflection of their quality. They could be another Bristol City, destined to slip back into the pack before Lampard's departure is quietly announced in the summer and he goes back to more regular appearances alongside cousin Jamie on Super Sunday.
Or not. After half an hour a blocked shot falls to Wilson on the left hand side of the Wednesday penalty area. It bounces up past knee height but the Welshman manages to get over it and arrow a volley into the far corner of Dawson's net. It's a beautifully exectuted piece of technique from Wilson whose talent was widley known but who had until this point spent large parts of his afternoon arguing with the referee. Otherwise he had shuffled along on the fringes of the game leaving no trace of the star quality that has persuaded Jurgen Klopp that he might be a key part of Liverpool's future. Four minutes later Jozefzoon slides a ball through to Marriott who expertly guides the ball past Dawson into the far corner to give Derby the lead. Marriott hits the bar before half-time. Without ever dominating the game Derby could be out of sight by the break. For all their huff and puff Wednesday don't look like a team capable of coming back from a two-goal deficit.
Having said that they are the better side. After the interval it is all Wednesday. Only Tom Huddlestone's long-range strike, acrobatically turned over by Dawson, provides any threat for the visitors. Wednesday hardly camp out in the Derby penalty area but they have much the better of the play and probably deserve something from their afternoon's endeavour. Fox's header comes back off a post from no more than a couple of yards while Marco Matias blazes over, blisfully unaware that the assistant referee has flagged him offside. Yet it is Forestieri who has the clearest chance to send the Wednsday faithful home if not happy, then fairly contented. But he fluffs it.
In a similar position from where Marriott had put Derby in front Forestieri is faced with just Carson to beat. As it leaves his foot Emma and I, behind the goal remember, are convinced it is going in and almost begin to celebrate. Yet later when we discuss the chance with Andrew and Roland they say that from their view from behind Forestieri they could tell from the moment he hit the shot that it was off target. He had tried to swerve it away from Carson with the outside of his foot and that had taken the ball away from the far post also. A curler back inside with the inside of his foot might have been a better option.
It's not just his missed chance but his overall performance that has me wondering about Forestieri. His relationship with the Wednesday fans has been a fairly on-off one to date, with moves to other clubs including Leeds United touted on more than one occasion. Last time we saw Wednesday live he was brilliant in that 1-0 win at Huddersfield Town but today he is underwhelming. He has been out of the side for a while and may be a little rusty. Maybe he will come good. But there remains a nagging suspicion that Lukuhay would be well advised to cash in on Forestieri if there are still suitors out there. The former Watford man will turn 29 in January which is not exactly veteran territory, but nor is he the future five years from now.
By contrast another man approaching his 29th birthday is proving indispensable to Wednesday. Barry Bannan is the best player on either side today, spraying the ball cleverly and sensibly around the midfield while also scurrying around to win every tackle he can. If this ailing team has a heartbeat then he is it. He's assured, never flustered despite the predicament of his side. Some say players of his style are a luxury if you end up in a fight for survival but his calming presence could be exactly what is needed if things start to get a little tetchy.
The sticking point on the plan of offloading Forestieri and building the side around Bannan might be uncertainty around the manager. Would you authorise a manager whose position looks ever more shaky to preside over the sale of one of your main assets and then trust him to find a suitable replacement? Derby hang on for the win and do so fairly comfortably after Forestieri's miss, leaving Wednesday just three points off the drop zone ahead of Tuesday night's home clash with Bolton Wanderers. Lukuhay's future has to be under discussion in the Wednesday boardroom. Wanderers are one of the teams still below Wednesday in the table but defeat to Phil Parkinson's side would surely signal the start of a relegation battle, if it hasn't started already. Managers get less and less time to get things right in modern football and Lukuhay's exit after 10 months in the job would be far from unusual for a modern Championship club. Gone are the days when boards didn't worry about the prospect of relegation and instead trusted their man to get it right in the end. A time when stability was a concept relating to something more than just television money. It isn't that long since Wednesday have played in the third tier of English football and I'm sure there is very little appetite to sample it again any time soon.
The tram ride back to our hotel is raucous. The Derby fans are in fine voice after a win which lifts their side to sixth in the table, level on points with Sheffield United and West Bromwich Albion immediately above them. Victory at Stoke on Wednesday night will continue their bid for a playoff place and, who knows, automatic promotion to the Premier League. It takes a long, long time for the tram to progress through the busy city stops and we get back into the Guinness-free bar, to the dodgy lager and another lengthy post-mortem with other friends and family who have gathered for the evening but who missed out on the afternoon's entertainment. The discussion never really stops, constantly resurfacing even after other topics have been introduced. Nobody has any definitive solutions to the ongoing conundrum that is Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.
Until next November then. I wonder who will be the visitors then. At this point the odds of it being Newcastle United are about the same as it being Shrewsbury Town. Such are the unpredictable ups and downs of football's league pyramid. I wouldn't like to bet on what league Wednesday will be in by then. If I had to put my money on anything it would be that someone else other than Lukuhay will be charged with leading the team.
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Monday, 19 November 2018
Something About Darts
This might have the feel of a diary entry at certain points. Having started to write about the Test series in Sri Lanka I can’t just leave you hanging. The thing is I have also been challenged to write about darts so I will attempt to rise to that challenge. The Test series concluded on the same day that darts had one of its more newsworthy days so it made some sort of sense to combine the two.
To Kandy first where England predictably wrapped up the second Test and therefore the three-match series. They started the final day needing three more wickets while the hosts required 75 runs to pull off a win that would have squared the series at 1-1. That figure had been reduced to 61 when Niroshan Dickwella edged Moeen Ali to Ben Stokes but by the time skipper Suranga Lakmal was bowled for a fat one by the Worcestershire man the jig was up. Victory was confirmed when Jack Leach caught Malinda Pushpakumara off his own bowling for just one. England’s 57-run triumph secured a first series win in Sri Lanka for 17 years, which I guess is the cricketing equivalent of pointing out that it’s been a while since Manchester United beat Brentford. There are bogey grounds and then there are places that you just don’t visit all that often.
One place that seldom occupies the sporting spotlight is Wolverhampton, but it to the midlands that we go for all the drama from the arrows. The city is the venue for this week’s Grand Slam of Darts, a tournament unique in the sport for having entrants from both the BDO (British Darts Organisation) and the PDC (Professional Darts Coporation). The sport has been split since the mid-90’s when the thought occurred to some of the better players that they could make a lot more dough away from the confines of the then ailing BDO. Darts had enjoyed a boom in the late 70s early 80s but was on the wane to the point where only the World Championships made it on to the television. It was struggling to put its beer and fags reputation behind it, an image not helped by a certain Smith & Jones sketch. In stepped Sky to fund a whole host of tournaments around the darting world and the sport was reborn.
The BDO plods on but it’s mostly a breeding ground for new PDC talent. Those who show their quality in the former regularly end up in the latter. Both organisations have their own version of the World Championship which is great for darts geeks who can watch the PDC bash over Christmas and then pore over the frankly inferior BDO version in the New Year. Yet for the Grand Slam they come together annually, almost as if the PDC wants its regular opportunity to prove its superiority. The only BDO player to win the Grand Slam of Darts is Scott Waites who did so in 2010 beating James Wade in the final, though there has been a representative in the last eight on nine occasions since the tournament began in 2007. This year Michael Unterbuchner saw off Wade to reach that stage but there the German was unceremoniously dumped out 16-6 by Flying Scotsman Gary Anderson.
Anderson has won pretty much everything in the PDC including two world titles, a UK Open, a World Matchplay and a Champions League of Darts but the Grand Slam still evades him. Having despatched darting behemoth Michael Van Gerwen in the semi-final here this was perhaps his greatest opportunity yet, but he was beaten by Welshman Gerwen Price in a controversial final. Price was booed as he received the trophy following altercations between the two players during the match. Anderson reacted grumpily to Price’s penchant for a roaring, posturing celebration at the end of a winning leg, at one point nudging Price out of the way as he stepped up to the oche. There have also been suggestions that Price was making noises in an attempt to put Anderson off during his throw. Price’s wind-up techniques are clearly part of his all-around game-plan and he makes no apology for them. All of which should ramp up the tension when the PDC World Championship gets under way in December.
Having said that neither man will be the favourite at Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace). Van Gerwen won the last three Grand Slam titles before this year’s event and is twice a World Champion. He has 29 PDC titles to his name and one World Masters from his time with the BDO. The Dutchman is an imposing figure with a touch of the George Dawes about him, screwing his face up and punching the air with every winning dart he throws. And there are plenty of those. Nicknamed ‘Mighty Mike’, the 29-year-old will be difficult to beat.
From the Flying Scotsman to Mighty Mike the nicknames are all part of the marketing wizardry which has catapulted darts back into the limelight. Along with the monikers each player has their own walk-on music which is belted out as they walk into the arena like boxers before a title bout. They were accompanied by a couple of walk-on girls until recently when the practice of attractive women marching alongside the players was ditched among cries of sexism and well, just generally not fitting in with what is acceptable in 2018. Formula One followed suit, proving if nothing else that darts is a sport which has influence outside of its own bubble.
The problem with darts for this writer, and what limits my interest to the World Championships and tournaments like the Grand Slam of Darts which happen to coincide with a period when I am off sick from work and unable to sleep very well, is the accompanying atmosphere. Though the players have had the pints of lager whisked from their tables since those heady days of Eric Bristow, Jocky Wilson et al 30 years or more ago, the fans still neck the sauce by the bucketful. There is nothing wrong with having a pint at the game so to speak. I continue to be baffled by football fans’ inability to enjoy an alcoholic beverage without the threat of the seats being torn out and flung across the field. But in darts a few scoops leads to some of the most tedious chanting, sign-writing and general ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-bell’ behaviour in society. It is all I can do not to switch off a match, no matter how thrilling, how gladiatorial, when I hear the intoxicated hordes break into a rendition of ‘boring, boring table’ or ‘stand up if you love the darts’. Darts fans must be the most witless live attendees of any major sporting event.
Perhaps if the chants were more original and the signs less hackneyed I’d be more inclined to watch more often. Oh and the fancy dress. Enough with the fancy dress. The very last refuge of the witless. Yet I am in the minority with this view and there is no sign of darts’ current popularity sliding as it did so dramatically pre-Sky and the PDC. The formula works, so much so that many rugby league enthusiasts want the man behind it all, Eddie Hearn, to introduce similar marketing efforts to the game. I have always been against this idea not least because I can’t stomach the site of the self-satisfied Hearn but also because I reject the idea that only one man in the world is capable of adequately marketing a sport as good as rugby league. If he ever did get his hands on rugby league I would hope that Hearn would have the good sense to market it differently. I do not want to see Saints walking out to ‘Hi-Ho Silver’ or for lulls in the action on the field to be ‘livened up’ with outbreaks of the Kolo/Yaya Toure song from the terraces. I can just about handle Golden Point, but when the chanting goes that far downhill I’m done.
I digress. The draw for the PDC World Championships takes place on November 26 with the action getting under way on December 13. All live of course on professional sport bankroller and occasional broadcaster Sky Sports. The final is on New Year’s night. For all its faults it has become part of Christmas for me and many others. The Grand Slam, complete with its girly spats and shock result, has done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm it will generate.
To Kandy first where England predictably wrapped up the second Test and therefore the three-match series. They started the final day needing three more wickets while the hosts required 75 runs to pull off a win that would have squared the series at 1-1. That figure had been reduced to 61 when Niroshan Dickwella edged Moeen Ali to Ben Stokes but by the time skipper Suranga Lakmal was bowled for a fat one by the Worcestershire man the jig was up. Victory was confirmed when Jack Leach caught Malinda Pushpakumara off his own bowling for just one. England’s 57-run triumph secured a first series win in Sri Lanka for 17 years, which I guess is the cricketing equivalent of pointing out that it’s been a while since Manchester United beat Brentford. There are bogey grounds and then there are places that you just don’t visit all that often.
One place that seldom occupies the sporting spotlight is Wolverhampton, but it to the midlands that we go for all the drama from the arrows. The city is the venue for this week’s Grand Slam of Darts, a tournament unique in the sport for having entrants from both the BDO (British Darts Organisation) and the PDC (Professional Darts Coporation). The sport has been split since the mid-90’s when the thought occurred to some of the better players that they could make a lot more dough away from the confines of the then ailing BDO. Darts had enjoyed a boom in the late 70s early 80s but was on the wane to the point where only the World Championships made it on to the television. It was struggling to put its beer and fags reputation behind it, an image not helped by a certain Smith & Jones sketch. In stepped Sky to fund a whole host of tournaments around the darting world and the sport was reborn.
The BDO plods on but it’s mostly a breeding ground for new PDC talent. Those who show their quality in the former regularly end up in the latter. Both organisations have their own version of the World Championship which is great for darts geeks who can watch the PDC bash over Christmas and then pore over the frankly inferior BDO version in the New Year. Yet for the Grand Slam they come together annually, almost as if the PDC wants its regular opportunity to prove its superiority. The only BDO player to win the Grand Slam of Darts is Scott Waites who did so in 2010 beating James Wade in the final, though there has been a representative in the last eight on nine occasions since the tournament began in 2007. This year Michael Unterbuchner saw off Wade to reach that stage but there the German was unceremoniously dumped out 16-6 by Flying Scotsman Gary Anderson.
Anderson has won pretty much everything in the PDC including two world titles, a UK Open, a World Matchplay and a Champions League of Darts but the Grand Slam still evades him. Having despatched darting behemoth Michael Van Gerwen in the semi-final here this was perhaps his greatest opportunity yet, but he was beaten by Welshman Gerwen Price in a controversial final. Price was booed as he received the trophy following altercations between the two players during the match. Anderson reacted grumpily to Price’s penchant for a roaring, posturing celebration at the end of a winning leg, at one point nudging Price out of the way as he stepped up to the oche. There have also been suggestions that Price was making noises in an attempt to put Anderson off during his throw. Price’s wind-up techniques are clearly part of his all-around game-plan and he makes no apology for them. All of which should ramp up the tension when the PDC World Championship gets under way in December.
Having said that neither man will be the favourite at Ally Pally (Alexandra Palace). Van Gerwen won the last three Grand Slam titles before this year’s event and is twice a World Champion. He has 29 PDC titles to his name and one World Masters from his time with the BDO. The Dutchman is an imposing figure with a touch of the George Dawes about him, screwing his face up and punching the air with every winning dart he throws. And there are plenty of those. Nicknamed ‘Mighty Mike’, the 29-year-old will be difficult to beat.
From the Flying Scotsman to Mighty Mike the nicknames are all part of the marketing wizardry which has catapulted darts back into the limelight. Along with the monikers each player has their own walk-on music which is belted out as they walk into the arena like boxers before a title bout. They were accompanied by a couple of walk-on girls until recently when the practice of attractive women marching alongside the players was ditched among cries of sexism and well, just generally not fitting in with what is acceptable in 2018. Formula One followed suit, proving if nothing else that darts is a sport which has influence outside of its own bubble.
The problem with darts for this writer, and what limits my interest to the World Championships and tournaments like the Grand Slam of Darts which happen to coincide with a period when I am off sick from work and unable to sleep very well, is the accompanying atmosphere. Though the players have had the pints of lager whisked from their tables since those heady days of Eric Bristow, Jocky Wilson et al 30 years or more ago, the fans still neck the sauce by the bucketful. There is nothing wrong with having a pint at the game so to speak. I continue to be baffled by football fans’ inability to enjoy an alcoholic beverage without the threat of the seats being torn out and flung across the field. But in darts a few scoops leads to some of the most tedious chanting, sign-writing and general ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-bell’ behaviour in society. It is all I can do not to switch off a match, no matter how thrilling, how gladiatorial, when I hear the intoxicated hordes break into a rendition of ‘boring, boring table’ or ‘stand up if you love the darts’. Darts fans must be the most witless live attendees of any major sporting event.
Perhaps if the chants were more original and the signs less hackneyed I’d be more inclined to watch more often. Oh and the fancy dress. Enough with the fancy dress. The very last refuge of the witless. Yet I am in the minority with this view and there is no sign of darts’ current popularity sliding as it did so dramatically pre-Sky and the PDC. The formula works, so much so that many rugby league enthusiasts want the man behind it all, Eddie Hearn, to introduce similar marketing efforts to the game. I have always been against this idea not least because I can’t stomach the site of the self-satisfied Hearn but also because I reject the idea that only one man in the world is capable of adequately marketing a sport as good as rugby league. If he ever did get his hands on rugby league I would hope that Hearn would have the good sense to market it differently. I do not want to see Saints walking out to ‘Hi-Ho Silver’ or for lulls in the action on the field to be ‘livened up’ with outbreaks of the Kolo/Yaya Toure song from the terraces. I can just about handle Golden Point, but when the chanting goes that far downhill I’m done.
I digress. The draw for the PDC World Championships takes place on November 26 with the action getting under way on December 13. All live of course on professional sport bankroller and occasional broadcaster Sky Sports. The final is on New Year’s night. For all its faults it has become part of Christmas for me and many others. The Grand Slam, complete with its girly spats and shock result, has done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm it will generate.
Saturday, 17 November 2018
England Cricket - That Little Boy And A Couple Of Old Men Look To The Future
Now that the rugby league season has finished I'm looking to diversify in my sports writing. If it goes well I'll be blog-juggling come the summer. If not it'll be as you were and nothing will be lost but pride. I've been off sick this week. Without going into the tiresome detail it's been fairly unpleasant at times and has led me to keep the kind of sleeping hours normally reserved for characters in The Deuce. A small consolation has been the fact that I have therefore been able to catch quite a bit of Sky's live coverage of England's Test series in Sri Lanka, albeit with the presence of some rather distracting stomach spasms.
The last time I wrote about cricket Alistair Cook was just about to take over as England captain from the retiring Andrew Strauss. Now Cook has also hung up the pads and England are led in Sri Lanka by Joe Root. Root is fast approaching his 28th birthday but is still referred to by my mum as 'that little boy'. There is a youthfulness about Root's look but even he was showing signs of wearying at certain points during today's fourth day of play in Kandy. Having won the first Test by 211 runs in Galle England had set the hosts a target of 301 to square the series going into the final match in Colombo. And they might yet do it. Rain has fallen at some stage of almost every day that England have been in Sri Lanka, with none of the five ODIs which preceded the Test series resolved without the aid of those two maths enthusiasts Duckworth and Lewis. When it fell today Sri Lanka were 226-7 in their second innings, just 75 short of victory.
Their problem is that seven. Those in the Duckworth-Lewis class at maths will have worked out that England therefore only need three more wickets before those 75 runs arrive to claim the win which would wrap up the series. It turns out that only four teams have put on more than 65 for the last three wickets to win a Test match in the last 100 years. The maths fun continues as I note that this equates to one every 25 years. Wheelchair accessible buses come along more often than that. Suranga Lakmal's side's hopes are slim, and rest largely on the brilliantly named wicket keeper batsman Niroshan Dickwella who is not out on 27. He's joined at the crease by Akila Dananjaya who took six wickets in England's second innings for 115 runs but is not likely to be quite as adept with the bat. After those two only Lakmal and Malinda Pushpakumara stand between England and an unassailable 2-1 series lead.
It's a strong position for England and one which has been achieved a little bit differently than you might be familiar with if you've only seen Test match cricket in English conditions. Stuart Broad has 384 Test wickets which is more than any Englishman in history other than James Anderson, yet the Nottinghamshire man has not been called into the XI for either of the first two Tests. It's a spinner's paradise where even Anderson seems to toil. The Burnley Lara has bowled only five overs in this Sri Lankan run chase. He bowled only 14 in the first innings and is wicketless in the match. The heavy lifting has been done by the spin trio of Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid and Jack Leach. The latter has four of the seven wickets to fall in the second Sri Lankan knock while Moeen has two including the prize scalp of Angelo Matthews for 88. The former Sri Lankan skipper, sacked in September amid the kind of political infighting which makes the crumbling Tory cabinet look strong and stable, was posing a genuine threat to the target before Moeen had him trapped in front with the aid of cricket's zany VAR equivalent DRS. It's another column by itself but basically DRS depends heavily on what the umpire thinks rather than concerning itself with matters of fact. With DRS you can be in or out, but if you're not in or out by enough then a technically incorrect decision won't be changed. They're looking for the 'howler'. I'd say they've found it.
Anderson and Broad were never going to go on forever but all this spinnery has me wondering whether we might be edging ever closer to a new England era without them. At 36 and 32 respectively how long do they realistically have left at the highest level? On the other hand if Theresa May is still Prime Minister in the current climate we could see the pair play on as long as WG Grace. Legend has it the great man was out many times but refused to go on the basis that he was the man that people had paid to see, not some upstart bowler who had just skittled him for a duck.
Assuming that's not possible who is going to replace them? Sam Curran has picked up a side strain and has only bowled four overs in this match, but has shown in his brief, six-match Test career that he has something of the Flintoff/Botham about him while Ben Stokes is already one of the world's best all-rounders when he's not forcefully disagreeing with members of the public at the weekend. Pace and seam will be needed when England host the World Cup and an Ashes series in the summer of 2019 but whether the prolific duo's creaking bodies can carry them that far is a question the England selectors have to find the right answer to. A summer with no international football tournament always puts a brighter spotlight on the fortunes of the England cricket team. Even more so when the Cricket World Cup and the Aussies are in town. We're not really counting the Nations League as an international tournament by the way, as much as I enjoy the mouth-frothing reaction to an international break of those who can't live without Bournemouth v Watford).
You'll be glad to know that I'm feeling a lot better than I was earlier in the week which means that my body is mercifully unlikely to wake me up in time to witness the denouement of this Test match live. Play on day five will start at 4.15am UK time on Sunday morning and it would be a major surprise if 75 runs or three wickets haven't been knocked off by the time I'm rolling out of bed. But I will be following events as quickly as I can after the cornflakes and look forward to your company as we trawl together through England's routine success/humbling inability to get through the tail end/delete as appropriate.
The last time I wrote about cricket Alistair Cook was just about to take over as England captain from the retiring Andrew Strauss. Now Cook has also hung up the pads and England are led in Sri Lanka by Joe Root. Root is fast approaching his 28th birthday but is still referred to by my mum as 'that little boy'. There is a youthfulness about Root's look but even he was showing signs of wearying at certain points during today's fourth day of play in Kandy. Having won the first Test by 211 runs in Galle England had set the hosts a target of 301 to square the series going into the final match in Colombo. And they might yet do it. Rain has fallen at some stage of almost every day that England have been in Sri Lanka, with none of the five ODIs which preceded the Test series resolved without the aid of those two maths enthusiasts Duckworth and Lewis. When it fell today Sri Lanka were 226-7 in their second innings, just 75 short of victory.
Their problem is that seven. Those in the Duckworth-Lewis class at maths will have worked out that England therefore only need three more wickets before those 75 runs arrive to claim the win which would wrap up the series. It turns out that only four teams have put on more than 65 for the last three wickets to win a Test match in the last 100 years. The maths fun continues as I note that this equates to one every 25 years. Wheelchair accessible buses come along more often than that. Suranga Lakmal's side's hopes are slim, and rest largely on the brilliantly named wicket keeper batsman Niroshan Dickwella who is not out on 27. He's joined at the crease by Akila Dananjaya who took six wickets in England's second innings for 115 runs but is not likely to be quite as adept with the bat. After those two only Lakmal and Malinda Pushpakumara stand between England and an unassailable 2-1 series lead.
It's a strong position for England and one which has been achieved a little bit differently than you might be familiar with if you've only seen Test match cricket in English conditions. Stuart Broad has 384 Test wickets which is more than any Englishman in history other than James Anderson, yet the Nottinghamshire man has not been called into the XI for either of the first two Tests. It's a spinner's paradise where even Anderson seems to toil. The Burnley Lara has bowled only five overs in this Sri Lankan run chase. He bowled only 14 in the first innings and is wicketless in the match. The heavy lifting has been done by the spin trio of Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid and Jack Leach. The latter has four of the seven wickets to fall in the second Sri Lankan knock while Moeen has two including the prize scalp of Angelo Matthews for 88. The former Sri Lankan skipper, sacked in September amid the kind of political infighting which makes the crumbling Tory cabinet look strong and stable, was posing a genuine threat to the target before Moeen had him trapped in front with the aid of cricket's zany VAR equivalent DRS. It's another column by itself but basically DRS depends heavily on what the umpire thinks rather than concerning itself with matters of fact. With DRS you can be in or out, but if you're not in or out by enough then a technically incorrect decision won't be changed. They're looking for the 'howler'. I'd say they've found it.
Anderson and Broad were never going to go on forever but all this spinnery has me wondering whether we might be edging ever closer to a new England era without them. At 36 and 32 respectively how long do they realistically have left at the highest level? On the other hand if Theresa May is still Prime Minister in the current climate we could see the pair play on as long as WG Grace. Legend has it the great man was out many times but refused to go on the basis that he was the man that people had paid to see, not some upstart bowler who had just skittled him for a duck.
Assuming that's not possible who is going to replace them? Sam Curran has picked up a side strain and has only bowled four overs in this match, but has shown in his brief, six-match Test career that he has something of the Flintoff/Botham about him while Ben Stokes is already one of the world's best all-rounders when he's not forcefully disagreeing with members of the public at the weekend. Pace and seam will be needed when England host the World Cup and an Ashes series in the summer of 2019 but whether the prolific duo's creaking bodies can carry them that far is a question the England selectors have to find the right answer to. A summer with no international football tournament always puts a brighter spotlight on the fortunes of the England cricket team. Even more so when the Cricket World Cup and the Aussies are in town. We're not really counting the Nations League as an international tournament by the way, as much as I enjoy the mouth-frothing reaction to an international break of those who can't live without Bournemouth v Watford).
You'll be glad to know that I'm feeling a lot better than I was earlier in the week which means that my body is mercifully unlikely to wake me up in time to witness the denouement of this Test match live. Play on day five will start at 4.15am UK time on Sunday morning and it would be a major surprise if 75 runs or three wickets haven't been knocked off by the time I'm rolling out of bed. But I will be following events as quickly as I can after the cornflakes and look forward to your company as we trawl together through England's routine success/humbling inability to get through the tail end/delete as appropriate.
Monday, 27 February 2012
The (All New) Saints Experience
While there are still far too many people who continue to deny the existence of rugby league, many of you will know that St.Helens moved into a new stadium for the start of the 2012 Super League season.
Langtree Park (so named after the company responsible for it's construction, to the ongoing dismay of those of us hoping to visit Alex Murphy Stadium) officialy opened with the pre-season friendly with Widnes on January 20. Despite the historic significance of this 'Karalius Cup' clash (some things are named after things of value), I have to confess that I was not there that night. We have long since passed the stage when pre-season friendlies could expect to have my attention. I have spent too many freezing cold Boxing Day afternoons watching scratch Saints and Wigan sides go at each other-half-heartedly in the immediate aftermath of the switch to summer rugby for that. Yet when the real business started with the opening home Super League fixture against Salford City Reds on February 10, I was there. And I shall be there for all other home encounters in Super League this year, the move to Langtree having inspired me to purchase a season ticket for the first time in my life.
You didn't need one at Knowsley Road. They just let you in free if you happened to be the proud owner of a wheelchair, or could at least make yourself look like you had some sort of physical impairment which might stop you from standing on the Popular side singing 'Annie's Song'. Frankly, having experienced the first two Super League games of 2012 at Langtree Park I can confirm categorically and without hesitation that I would rather pay. Gone are the days of arriving half cut from the Bird I'th Hand 10 minutes before kick-off to find the wheelchair users' area jam packed. When Wigan visited the place would be two or three deep like the bar at Lowies on 10p-a-pint night all those years ago. I missed one such derby encounter, having decided that I was not prepared to sit behind a bunch of pie-eating grass-watchers who had been there since the last time Wigan visited. I ended up back at the Bird I'th Hand as it happens, and the remainder of that day is something of a blur. What I can tell you is that we won 41-26, the much maligned Danny Arnold scored a hat-trick and blew a memorable kiss to the Sky cameras, and the view from the television in the bar was much better than I could have hoped for had I stayed.
No such problems at Langtree Park. My season ticket cost me £260 (that's £20 a game for those of you paying upwards of £45 to watch Dirk Kuyt or Michael Carrick) and places me at the very top of the North Stand, level with the 30-metre line nearest the East Stand. I have frequented many rugby league grounds over the years and can assure you that this view is the equal of anything I have experienced. In addition, the more modest 18,000 capacity negates any fear of games taking place in a half-empty stadium as they have been known to do at the bigger football stadia used by Wigan and Huddersfield.
And so to Salford. It's the second game of the season for both, the Saints having held off London Broncos by 10 in the capital a week previous, while the Reds had lost the first game in their new City of Salford Stadium to the Castleford Tigers. Those results have made Saints an even bigger favourite to win, adding to the pressure already on them in front of what lazy journalists call a 'bumper' crowd. You know the opening of the new stadium has made a difference when you consider that there are 15,500 people in attendance. Never before have I seen such a crowd for the visit of a proud but ultimately middling and limited entity as Salford. Ordinarily the most notable aspect of a visit from Salford is their penchant for singing 'if you all hate scousers clap your hands' at us, to which some of the less witty Saints spectators like to respond by either joining in with the singing or clapping their hands when prompted. Not me. I have lots of nice friends from Liverpool. Well, three or four maybe.
I'm with Emma. It would be rude for her not to take the opportunity to visit since my ticket allows me one companion for free. The steward on the door think she's my helper. Of course he does. You probably do. Anyway I know this because when the senile old goat sends her through the turnstile to swipe in he tries to manhandle me. "I will push!, thankyou!" I say three times before he gets the message and takes his grubby hands off me. Emma's still got my ticket on her, but another steward lets me through a large gate anyway and onto the main concourse. It's lucky there are pictures of former Saints players with accompanying information to occupy me because it is some time before Emma gets through the turnstile to join me. The card won't swipe, she explains. Typical Saints. New stadium, great players, great history, but can they print out a swipe card with a barcode on it? Can they shite.
A little lost, we set off in search of the lift to get to what we know is our speck on the platform. Fortunately, I spy a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. It's Jocky, the glass collecter from the Springy and he is wearing a luminous steward's jacket. Immediately behind him is the lift. That's handy. We hadn't thought it through, and ended up coming back down 10 minutes later for a cup of tea. Tea drinking, or at least tea-purchasing, is something which was not particularly practical at Knowsley Road but tonight it is essential. It's several degrees below as the powers that be continue to ignore the folly of starting a summer sport in the first week of February. Are we a summer sport or not? It's a debate for another time, perhaps, but I'm bloody cold. So tea it is, even at £1.50.
This being an historic occasion the pre-game build up is ratcheted up a few levels from the usual fair of academy games or out-of-work tribute singers. To mark the first league game at Langtree Park there is a parade of former Saints greats, with guest of honour Tom Van Vollenhoven walking out to greet the players and present the match ball. For the uninitiated, Van Vollenhoven scored 392 tries in 409 Saints appearances between 1957 and 1968. I'm pleased to see two Thatto Heathers in Murphy and Keiron Cunningham cutting the ribbon in ceremonial fashion. In all it is conducted in a far more dignified manner than we have any right to expect from a club with the repuation for PR disaster like St.Helens.
Salford are all decked out in green which, while not exactly one for the purists, is at least eye-catching. Saints have a couple of new signings on show in Anthony Laffranchi and Lance Hohaia, while Josh Perry's return from injury feels like another new import. At least before the game, as in truth the big Aussie continues his struggle to make a real impact on Super League. Indeed, the front row is the glaring soft-spot for Saints as they struggle early on. At 10-0 down thoughts go back to the loss of James Graham to the Canterbury Bulldogs in the off-season. This is just the sort of situation in which the flame-haired prop is required. Instead the physical lift is coming from Sia Soliola, a man who seems capable of making me hear his tackles even from our elevated position. Sia's all action, but he's not blessed so much with subtlety or out-and-out pace. Despite his limitations and because of his endeavours, it is Soliola who forces his way over for the try that reduces the arrears to just six as the teams turn round at half-time.
In the second half Saints take over. Andrew Dixon has been on the fringes of the Saints first team for some time now, but here he produces a sensational two-try display in the second forty. James Roby has been the best player in Super League for about four years, and his influence grows as he also gets on the scoresheet along with Franics Meli, John Wilkin and Laffranchi. Despite the absence of regular goal-kicker Jamie Foster, another kicking winger Tommy Makinson adds on five goals. Each time he lands one I will the stadium announcer to say Tommy M..........Martyn!!!! But he never does. He's a professional, you see. In the end Saints' 38-10 victory is all the more satisfying for their achievement of having held the Reds scoreless in the second half. Reds coach Phil Vievers is a former Saints full-back who regularly turned up in the same town centre watering holes as this writer during his time at Knowsley Road. He was happier then than he will be now, but his team have come up against a superior set of players helped by that bumper crowd I mentioned.
The walk over the illuminated bridge back into town is cold and slow, and there's a man walking not a metre in front of me who keeps shouting out bad jokes and laughing at himself. He's probably spent too much time in the Langtree Park refreshment areas, but I can forgive him his inanity. He was never going to spoil this night. May there be many more like it.
I did mention that I have seen the first two games of the season at Langtree didn't I? The second was Catalan, and Catalan is another story all by itself......
Langtree Park (so named after the company responsible for it's construction, to the ongoing dismay of those of us hoping to visit Alex Murphy Stadium) officialy opened with the pre-season friendly with Widnes on January 20. Despite the historic significance of this 'Karalius Cup' clash (some things are named after things of value), I have to confess that I was not there that night. We have long since passed the stage when pre-season friendlies could expect to have my attention. I have spent too many freezing cold Boxing Day afternoons watching scratch Saints and Wigan sides go at each other-half-heartedly in the immediate aftermath of the switch to summer rugby for that. Yet when the real business started with the opening home Super League fixture against Salford City Reds on February 10, I was there. And I shall be there for all other home encounters in Super League this year, the move to Langtree having inspired me to purchase a season ticket for the first time in my life.
You didn't need one at Knowsley Road. They just let you in free if you happened to be the proud owner of a wheelchair, or could at least make yourself look like you had some sort of physical impairment which might stop you from standing on the Popular side singing 'Annie's Song'. Frankly, having experienced the first two Super League games of 2012 at Langtree Park I can confirm categorically and without hesitation that I would rather pay. Gone are the days of arriving half cut from the Bird I'th Hand 10 minutes before kick-off to find the wheelchair users' area jam packed. When Wigan visited the place would be two or three deep like the bar at Lowies on 10p-a-pint night all those years ago. I missed one such derby encounter, having decided that I was not prepared to sit behind a bunch of pie-eating grass-watchers who had been there since the last time Wigan visited. I ended up back at the Bird I'th Hand as it happens, and the remainder of that day is something of a blur. What I can tell you is that we won 41-26, the much maligned Danny Arnold scored a hat-trick and blew a memorable kiss to the Sky cameras, and the view from the television in the bar was much better than I could have hoped for had I stayed.
No such problems at Langtree Park. My season ticket cost me £260 (that's £20 a game for those of you paying upwards of £45 to watch Dirk Kuyt or Michael Carrick) and places me at the very top of the North Stand, level with the 30-metre line nearest the East Stand. I have frequented many rugby league grounds over the years and can assure you that this view is the equal of anything I have experienced. In addition, the more modest 18,000 capacity negates any fear of games taking place in a half-empty stadium as they have been known to do at the bigger football stadia used by Wigan and Huddersfield.
And so to Salford. It's the second game of the season for both, the Saints having held off London Broncos by 10 in the capital a week previous, while the Reds had lost the first game in their new City of Salford Stadium to the Castleford Tigers. Those results have made Saints an even bigger favourite to win, adding to the pressure already on them in front of what lazy journalists call a 'bumper' crowd. You know the opening of the new stadium has made a difference when you consider that there are 15,500 people in attendance. Never before have I seen such a crowd for the visit of a proud but ultimately middling and limited entity as Salford. Ordinarily the most notable aspect of a visit from Salford is their penchant for singing 'if you all hate scousers clap your hands' at us, to which some of the less witty Saints spectators like to respond by either joining in with the singing or clapping their hands when prompted. Not me. I have lots of nice friends from Liverpool. Well, three or four maybe.
I'm with Emma. It would be rude for her not to take the opportunity to visit since my ticket allows me one companion for free. The steward on the door think she's my helper. Of course he does. You probably do. Anyway I know this because when the senile old goat sends her through the turnstile to swipe in he tries to manhandle me. "I will push!, thankyou!" I say three times before he gets the message and takes his grubby hands off me. Emma's still got my ticket on her, but another steward lets me through a large gate anyway and onto the main concourse. It's lucky there are pictures of former Saints players with accompanying information to occupy me because it is some time before Emma gets through the turnstile to join me. The card won't swipe, she explains. Typical Saints. New stadium, great players, great history, but can they print out a swipe card with a barcode on it? Can they shite.
A little lost, we set off in search of the lift to get to what we know is our speck on the platform. Fortunately, I spy a familiar face out of the corner of my eye. It's Jocky, the glass collecter from the Springy and he is wearing a luminous steward's jacket. Immediately behind him is the lift. That's handy. We hadn't thought it through, and ended up coming back down 10 minutes later for a cup of tea. Tea drinking, or at least tea-purchasing, is something which was not particularly practical at Knowsley Road but tonight it is essential. It's several degrees below as the powers that be continue to ignore the folly of starting a summer sport in the first week of February. Are we a summer sport or not? It's a debate for another time, perhaps, but I'm bloody cold. So tea it is, even at £1.50.
This being an historic occasion the pre-game build up is ratcheted up a few levels from the usual fair of academy games or out-of-work tribute singers. To mark the first league game at Langtree Park there is a parade of former Saints greats, with guest of honour Tom Van Vollenhoven walking out to greet the players and present the match ball. For the uninitiated, Van Vollenhoven scored 392 tries in 409 Saints appearances between 1957 and 1968. I'm pleased to see two Thatto Heathers in Murphy and Keiron Cunningham cutting the ribbon in ceremonial fashion. In all it is conducted in a far more dignified manner than we have any right to expect from a club with the repuation for PR disaster like St.Helens.
Salford are all decked out in green which, while not exactly one for the purists, is at least eye-catching. Saints have a couple of new signings on show in Anthony Laffranchi and Lance Hohaia, while Josh Perry's return from injury feels like another new import. At least before the game, as in truth the big Aussie continues his struggle to make a real impact on Super League. Indeed, the front row is the glaring soft-spot for Saints as they struggle early on. At 10-0 down thoughts go back to the loss of James Graham to the Canterbury Bulldogs in the off-season. This is just the sort of situation in which the flame-haired prop is required. Instead the physical lift is coming from Sia Soliola, a man who seems capable of making me hear his tackles even from our elevated position. Sia's all action, but he's not blessed so much with subtlety or out-and-out pace. Despite his limitations and because of his endeavours, it is Soliola who forces his way over for the try that reduces the arrears to just six as the teams turn round at half-time.
In the second half Saints take over. Andrew Dixon has been on the fringes of the Saints first team for some time now, but here he produces a sensational two-try display in the second forty. James Roby has been the best player in Super League for about four years, and his influence grows as he also gets on the scoresheet along with Franics Meli, John Wilkin and Laffranchi. Despite the absence of regular goal-kicker Jamie Foster, another kicking winger Tommy Makinson adds on five goals. Each time he lands one I will the stadium announcer to say Tommy M..........Martyn!!!! But he never does. He's a professional, you see. In the end Saints' 38-10 victory is all the more satisfying for their achievement of having held the Reds scoreless in the second half. Reds coach Phil Vievers is a former Saints full-back who regularly turned up in the same town centre watering holes as this writer during his time at Knowsley Road. He was happier then than he will be now, but his team have come up against a superior set of players helped by that bumper crowd I mentioned.
The walk over the illuminated bridge back into town is cold and slow, and there's a man walking not a metre in front of me who keeps shouting out bad jokes and laughing at himself. He's probably spent too much time in the Langtree Park refreshment areas, but I can forgive him his inanity. He was never going to spoil this night. May there be many more like it.
I did mention that I have seen the first two games of the season at Langtree didn't I? The second was Catalan, and Catalan is another story all by itself......
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Clash Of The Codes
I said I wouldn't do this. On November 17 I declared all Stephen Orford-related blogs closed. Ended. Finished. Concluded. Ex-blogs. But........
Today a colleague sent me an article from the Daily Telegraph about rugby league. Before I even looked at it I asked 'is this more pro-union propoganda?'. I knew the answer well before it came. This particular colleague is as pro-union as John Inverdale and David Campese but not, as it turns out, as pro-union as the author of this repugnant bile that the DT saw fit to publish on it's website.
If I told you the piece was entitled 'Rugby League Is Not A Sport, It's An Atrocity', you would easily see where it was headed. Written by the amusingly named Paul Pottinger (is that made up?) the general thrust of the piece is that rugby league is not worth the proverbial wank and that it exists only in 'grimy northern towns' and 'rustic French villages'.
Ignoring Pottinger's lazy stereotyping I'm tempted to ask, 'so what?'. Does everything have to be popular in Wales and Argentina to have any value? So rugby league is not global. Nor are American Football or baseball but they get along just fine. If I have a criticism of rugby league it is that we continue to try and ram it down the throats of comitted philistines in South Wales, London and France. Should the pro-union scrum-lovers actually bother to sit down and watch a game of rugby league they will soon deduce that it is a pulsating, all-action collision sport played by proper athletes. Those actually within rugby union appear to have cottoned on to this fact, employing many of rugby league's finest in coaching roles and persistently sniffing around league's best players with their huge sacks. Of cash.
And while we're at it let's talk about rugby union shall we? From a style point of view. If I can be so bold as to use the word 'style' in the same sentence as 'rugby union'. Not sure I can. Pottinger describes rugby league as a game in which the players run 'strict linear patterns until a mistake is made and one falls over the other's line'. The point hasn't been missed this badly since Richard Keys and Andy Gray said 'but we weren't on air!'.
On the other hand, rugby union at the top level can only look on jealously at anyone who attempts to run with the ball, whether in strict linear lines or otherwise. Running and passing at the kind of speeds employed by rugby league players is too great a proposition athletically for the 15-a-side men, who choose instead to lump the ball 60 yards up the field into touch. In that sense, union wins hands down in terms of audience participation. If you're heading to a union game keep your wits about you because you know that at any time the ball WILL be hurtling towards you following one of the many pointless, aimless punts. And then you'll get to see a line-out. Oh the joy. The joy of seeing two short, pig-like skinheads lift their taller, jug-eared team-mate up into the air to compete for the right to bat the ball down to the waiting scrum half. A scrum-half who is simply chomping at the bit to knock it on a dozen or so times before finally executing a 10-yard pass to the fly-half (what we sensible folk call a stand-off). And then another kick to touch.
So dull and without athletic merit is rugby union that it had to increase the number of points awarded for a try from four to five, a last-gasp, bended-knee plea to it's exponents to please, please, just occasionally, try running with the ball. It hasn't really worked, nor has the similarly desperate innovation of awarding bonus points in many competitions for teams scoring more than three or four tries. In league, if you score less than three or four tries in a game you have either had a real shocker or the defence you have come up against has played to a very high level indeed.
Pottinger refers to rugby league scrums as 'flagrant, non-agressive pacts'. And? Good. Who wants to see a proper scrum anyway? Is there anything more dull than watching huge men grab hold of each other, pushing, shoving and farting until someone locates the ball and boots it into touch again? Or worse still, have the referee spot some infringement, unfathomable to even the keenest union afficionados, leading to ANOTHER shot at goal from where union gets around 80-85% of it's turgid scoreboard action. Get rid of them. Just get the fecking game started again and get a few bigger blokes out of the way so we can see some handling skills.
The Six Nations (formerly the Five Nations but union is global nowadays. Shit, but global) starts soon. I'll be out getting my genitals removed without the aid of anaesthetic or listening to the full back catalogue of Jedward.
EPILOGUE
It has been pointed out to me by my union-loving friend that Paul Pottinger's article did not come from the Daily Telegraph, but instead was spewed out by The Telegraph in Australia. Sincere apologies for this factual error. What can I tell you except that I knocked this up in 45 minutes when I had finished work yesterday? To date, this is the only inaccuracy in the piece that my union-loving friend has found. It seems the rest is inarguable fact.
Today a colleague sent me an article from the Daily Telegraph about rugby league. Before I even looked at it I asked 'is this more pro-union propoganda?'. I knew the answer well before it came. This particular colleague is as pro-union as John Inverdale and David Campese but not, as it turns out, as pro-union as the author of this repugnant bile that the DT saw fit to publish on it's website.
If I told you the piece was entitled 'Rugby League Is Not A Sport, It's An Atrocity', you would easily see where it was headed. Written by the amusingly named Paul Pottinger (is that made up?) the general thrust of the piece is that rugby league is not worth the proverbial wank and that it exists only in 'grimy northern towns' and 'rustic French villages'.
Ignoring Pottinger's lazy stereotyping I'm tempted to ask, 'so what?'. Does everything have to be popular in Wales and Argentina to have any value? So rugby league is not global. Nor are American Football or baseball but they get along just fine. If I have a criticism of rugby league it is that we continue to try and ram it down the throats of comitted philistines in South Wales, London and France. Should the pro-union scrum-lovers actually bother to sit down and watch a game of rugby league they will soon deduce that it is a pulsating, all-action collision sport played by proper athletes. Those actually within rugby union appear to have cottoned on to this fact, employing many of rugby league's finest in coaching roles and persistently sniffing around league's best players with their huge sacks. Of cash.
And while we're at it let's talk about rugby union shall we? From a style point of view. If I can be so bold as to use the word 'style' in the same sentence as 'rugby union'. Not sure I can. Pottinger describes rugby league as a game in which the players run 'strict linear patterns until a mistake is made and one falls over the other's line'. The point hasn't been missed this badly since Richard Keys and Andy Gray said 'but we weren't on air!'.
On the other hand, rugby union at the top level can only look on jealously at anyone who attempts to run with the ball, whether in strict linear lines or otherwise. Running and passing at the kind of speeds employed by rugby league players is too great a proposition athletically for the 15-a-side men, who choose instead to lump the ball 60 yards up the field into touch. In that sense, union wins hands down in terms of audience participation. If you're heading to a union game keep your wits about you because you know that at any time the ball WILL be hurtling towards you following one of the many pointless, aimless punts. And then you'll get to see a line-out. Oh the joy. The joy of seeing two short, pig-like skinheads lift their taller, jug-eared team-mate up into the air to compete for the right to bat the ball down to the waiting scrum half. A scrum-half who is simply chomping at the bit to knock it on a dozen or so times before finally executing a 10-yard pass to the fly-half (what we sensible folk call a stand-off). And then another kick to touch.
So dull and without athletic merit is rugby union that it had to increase the number of points awarded for a try from four to five, a last-gasp, bended-knee plea to it's exponents to please, please, just occasionally, try running with the ball. It hasn't really worked, nor has the similarly desperate innovation of awarding bonus points in many competitions for teams scoring more than three or four tries. In league, if you score less than three or four tries in a game you have either had a real shocker or the defence you have come up against has played to a very high level indeed.
Pottinger refers to rugby league scrums as 'flagrant, non-agressive pacts'. And? Good. Who wants to see a proper scrum anyway? Is there anything more dull than watching huge men grab hold of each other, pushing, shoving and farting until someone locates the ball and boots it into touch again? Or worse still, have the referee spot some infringement, unfathomable to even the keenest union afficionados, leading to ANOTHER shot at goal from where union gets around 80-85% of it's turgid scoreboard action. Get rid of them. Just get the fecking game started again and get a few bigger blokes out of the way so we can see some handling skills.
The Six Nations (formerly the Five Nations but union is global nowadays. Shit, but global) starts soon. I'll be out getting my genitals removed without the aid of anaesthetic or listening to the full back catalogue of Jedward.
EPILOGUE
It has been pointed out to me by my union-loving friend that Paul Pottinger's article did not come from the Daily Telegraph, but instead was spewed out by The Telegraph in Australia. Sincere apologies for this factual error. What can I tell you except that I knocked this up in 45 minutes when I had finished work yesterday? To date, this is the only inaccuracy in the piece that my union-loving friend has found. It seems the rest is inarguable fact.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Closing The Shop
I don't like Widnes.
I'm a St.Helens fan so I'm not supposed to. Along with that smelly mob from over Billinge Lump and the newly rich Warrington Wolves, Widnes' locality makes them traditionally one of Saints' biggest rivals.
That rivalry is about to be renewed in 2012 after the Vikings were awarded a Super League license today. They beat off competition from Halifax and Barrow for the right to play in next season's competition. But it isn't the fact that they are a local rival which grinds my gears about Widnes' return to the top flight. It's the fact that these matters are now no longer decided on the field of play, but instead by a group of men in suits.
In 2008 Super League decided, in it's infinite wisdom, to move away from the traditional promotion and relegation systems which serve other sports perfectly well, and push towards a licensing or 'franchising' system. All of which meant that any club wishing to compete in the following season's competition (including those already in it regardless of how well they had fared) had to submit an application to the Rugby Football League. Applications now needed to meet a set of criteria, very few of which had anything to do with the strength of the team on the field.
This is how we arrived at the sorry position of housing a South Welsh club in Super League. Interest for rugby league in South Wales is about as high as it is for Lily Allen in my house. Sure enough after just one season in union country, the Crusaders were moved north to Wrexham. They currently sit bottom of Super League having won only one of their first seven games and having four points deducted for going into administration. Yes, solvency is on the RFL's all-important list of criteria for deciding how to dish out licenses. But it's not as important as geography. If you are based in an area not normally associated with rugby league, you're as good as in. A very special welcome to Harlequins of London and the French-based Catalan Dragons, then. Leigh? Fuck off.
I've just finished watching the reaction to today's decision on Sky. Eddie Hemmings did his best to convince, but for any rugby league fan worth his salt words like 'application', 'audit' and 'process' would have had the evening meal swirling uncomfortably around the stomach. This vomit-inducing nonsense will do nothing but turn Super League into a complete replica of one of the team sports competitions in America or Australia. If it isn't already. What you will be left with is effectively a closed shop in which each 'franchise' basically takes turns to win championships until they have enough 'rings' to have the bloody trophy named after them.
Sky have a very clear agenda and, to be fair, they have done more than most to turn rugby league into the entertaining spectacle that it is today. They have helped shake off many of the flat-cap and whippet stereotpyes so favoured by Tottenham fans living in Kent, but they have done so entirely for their own ends. Franchising makes sport less predictable, they argue, which will do for them if it means that more fans will tune in thinking that their team has a genuine chance to be successful from time to time.
Either way they hold all the power, which is why we have to suffer their decision to give air-time to the men who meet to make the boardroom decisions which now seem to over-ride fair competition. The fact that RFL Whatever-He-Is Ralph Rimmer's beard is multi-coloured is a side-issue here. It's all just so very, very wrong. And is it just me who cringes every time that failed tennis player and accomplished half-wit, RFL Chief Executive Richard Lewis, makes an appearance on screen? He's genuinely creepy. He speaks without opening his mouth, and I'm convinced he's not going to stop until he has ruined rugby league for everyone, particularly those unfortunate enough to support a team which hasn't attracted a crowd of over 10,000 recently.
Widnes' good fortune makes them unique, because the silliness hasn't stopped just yet. Now all 14 current Super League clubs plus Halifax (presumably based on some kind of best loser wild card rule) will go forward to have their applications (blurgh) analysed ahead of an announcement on July 26. Which means that Widnes, a club currently flattering to deceive in the Championship, are the only club who today can claim to be guaranteed a slot in next season's Super League competition. Sky showed footage of their fans celebrating Lewis' much trumpeted announcement and I couldn't help but feel sad. Such outbreaks of joy should be reserved for the terraces, for running on to the turf and persuading Ellery Hanley to let you hold the Lancashire Cup even though you hate Wigan, or jumping on Sonny Nickle's back! The celebration of the opening of an envelope is deeply tragic and utterly anti-sport.
Nevertheless, Widnes' inclusion means that one of the current 14 will have to make way, with the smart money on Wakefield following their Crusader-like financial problems and their abject failure to be Welsh. Halifax could yet oust a second, although previous suggestions that Castleford could be in jeopardy have been slightly quietened by the Tigers' appearance in the top three of the competition this season.
Kicking them out would just be embarrassing, but so long as licensing, franchising and men in suits hold sway, they have plenty to worry about.
I'm a St.Helens fan so I'm not supposed to. Along with that smelly mob from over Billinge Lump and the newly rich Warrington Wolves, Widnes' locality makes them traditionally one of Saints' biggest rivals.
That rivalry is about to be renewed in 2012 after the Vikings were awarded a Super League license today. They beat off competition from Halifax and Barrow for the right to play in next season's competition. But it isn't the fact that they are a local rival which grinds my gears about Widnes' return to the top flight. It's the fact that these matters are now no longer decided on the field of play, but instead by a group of men in suits.
In 2008 Super League decided, in it's infinite wisdom, to move away from the traditional promotion and relegation systems which serve other sports perfectly well, and push towards a licensing or 'franchising' system. All of which meant that any club wishing to compete in the following season's competition (including those already in it regardless of how well they had fared) had to submit an application to the Rugby Football League. Applications now needed to meet a set of criteria, very few of which had anything to do with the strength of the team on the field.
This is how we arrived at the sorry position of housing a South Welsh club in Super League. Interest for rugby league in South Wales is about as high as it is for Lily Allen in my house. Sure enough after just one season in union country, the Crusaders were moved north to Wrexham. They currently sit bottom of Super League having won only one of their first seven games and having four points deducted for going into administration. Yes, solvency is on the RFL's all-important list of criteria for deciding how to dish out licenses. But it's not as important as geography. If you are based in an area not normally associated with rugby league, you're as good as in. A very special welcome to Harlequins of London and the French-based Catalan Dragons, then. Leigh? Fuck off.
I've just finished watching the reaction to today's decision on Sky. Eddie Hemmings did his best to convince, but for any rugby league fan worth his salt words like 'application', 'audit' and 'process' would have had the evening meal swirling uncomfortably around the stomach. This vomit-inducing nonsense will do nothing but turn Super League into a complete replica of one of the team sports competitions in America or Australia. If it isn't already. What you will be left with is effectively a closed shop in which each 'franchise' basically takes turns to win championships until they have enough 'rings' to have the bloody trophy named after them.
Sky have a very clear agenda and, to be fair, they have done more than most to turn rugby league into the entertaining spectacle that it is today. They have helped shake off many of the flat-cap and whippet stereotpyes so favoured by Tottenham fans living in Kent, but they have done so entirely for their own ends. Franchising makes sport less predictable, they argue, which will do for them if it means that more fans will tune in thinking that their team has a genuine chance to be successful from time to time.
Either way they hold all the power, which is why we have to suffer their decision to give air-time to the men who meet to make the boardroom decisions which now seem to over-ride fair competition. The fact that RFL Whatever-He-Is Ralph Rimmer's beard is multi-coloured is a side-issue here. It's all just so very, very wrong. And is it just me who cringes every time that failed tennis player and accomplished half-wit, RFL Chief Executive Richard Lewis, makes an appearance on screen? He's genuinely creepy. He speaks without opening his mouth, and I'm convinced he's not going to stop until he has ruined rugby league for everyone, particularly those unfortunate enough to support a team which hasn't attracted a crowd of over 10,000 recently.
Widnes' good fortune makes them unique, because the silliness hasn't stopped just yet. Now all 14 current Super League clubs plus Halifax (presumably based on some kind of best loser wild card rule) will go forward to have their applications (blurgh) analysed ahead of an announcement on July 26. Which means that Widnes, a club currently flattering to deceive in the Championship, are the only club who today can claim to be guaranteed a slot in next season's Super League competition. Sky showed footage of their fans celebrating Lewis' much trumpeted announcement and I couldn't help but feel sad. Such outbreaks of joy should be reserved for the terraces, for running on to the turf and persuading Ellery Hanley to let you hold the Lancashire Cup even though you hate Wigan, or jumping on Sonny Nickle's back! The celebration of the opening of an envelope is deeply tragic and utterly anti-sport.
Nevertheless, Widnes' inclusion means that one of the current 14 will have to make way, with the smart money on Wakefield following their Crusader-like financial problems and their abject failure to be Welsh. Halifax could yet oust a second, although previous suggestions that Castleford could be in jeopardy have been slightly quietened by the Tigers' appearance in the top three of the competition this season.
Kicking them out would just be embarrassing, but so long as licensing, franchising and men in suits hold sway, they have plenty to worry about.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Kyle
Lots of rugby league players have made the switch to rugby union. Each and every time it has irked me considerably, but none more so than Kyle Eastmond's decision to leave St.Helens for Bath at the end of the current Super League season.
It's not that he is the best player to ever cross codes. Jason Robinson was a key member of the 2003 World Cup winning side and is undoubtedly the best of those to have crossed the divide. Henry Paul, Andy Farrell, Lesley Vainikolo and Shontayne Hape have all played union for England following successful rugby league careers, while Chris Ashton had one successful season at Wigan and can now be found bewildering clueless union defenders.
Yet Eastmond is the first high profile (well, relatively, more on which later) St.Helens player to make the move. All of which stings a bit given my natural bias and my long-time hatred of union. It's an appalling excuse for a sport which seems to serve no purpose other than to give doctors and dentists something to shout about when Chelsea aren't playing. And yet it continues to attract the cream of young rugby league talent thanks to the financial power it has acquired since following league into professionalism.
Like Ashton, Eastmond turns to the dark side at a time when he has achieved very little in rugby league. He has (or had) undoubted potential but at just 21 years of age he had yet to establish himself as a worthy successor to Sean Long in the scrum-half position. When Saints let Long leave for Hull they put a lot of faith in Eastmond's potential, a move which has now spectacularly backfired. It leaves them hanging on to a player who clearly has his mind elsewhere as they use the remainder of this season to try to find a replacement.
Though it may not suit the suits at Bath, it would be far better for Saints if Eastmond were to go now. He was booed by a section of the support during the disappointing 25-18 defeat to Warrington at the weekend, a situation which prompted him to head straight for the tunnel at the final whistle rather than stay on the field to thank the support. Coach Royce Simmons was unimpressed by this, launching a thinly veiled attack on Eastmond with meanderings about sticking together as a team and grumbles about the unsatisfactory nature of carrying a player with what was then an uncertain future. It's clear that Simmons would rather move on from Eastmond, though it looks as though he will be forced to stick by him until the end of 2011.
Eastmond has immediately made noises about promising to give his very best for the remainder of the season. This might be considered a small mercy given that there is no obvious candidate to replace him in the number seven jersey at present, but I for one would rather have a rudderless ship than persevere with a player who clearly has no desire not only to play for St.Helens (a heinous crime in itself) but to even play the sport of rugby league! No player is bigger than the club, let alone the sport, and in drawing out this ridiculous transfer saga Eastmond has shown little respect for the club he recently alleged that he 'loved', nor the game itself. No doubt the player's agent, a certain Mr Offiah, has been more than instrumental in securing a deal with the rah-rahs. And we all know how much he loves St.Helens, not to mention his penchant for a wedge of cash. Ten percent, anyone?
Cathartic as it is, Eastmond-bashing will not stop similarly talented players from making the same choice in the future. Notwithstanding the money available in union, that game somehow enjoys a greater public profile and can make superstars of it's top performers almost overnight. Ashton's tedious try celebration has received more press coverage over the last two months than anything achieved by a rugby league player at the start of the new season. In addition, you can barely switch on your television these days without seeing Gavin Henson, Austin Healey of Matt Fecking Dawson engaging in some inane brand of 'reality entertainment'.
I'm not sure I want to see James Graham on 'Hole In The Wall' or 'Strictly', but I do think that he and his contempories deserve a little higher profile than they are currently afforded. Yet until rugby league develops a credible international structure the fact that these are among the fittest and best athletes in sport is likely to remain lost on most of the population. Currently only three nations (Australia, New Zealand and England......just) play rugby league to a high level internationally, a situation perpetuated by the governing body's weakness in allowing players to switch international allegiances almost willy and indeed nilly. You can't continue to allow the Fijis and the Tongas of this world to be used as stepping stones to the Australian national side and expect to have a truly global game at the end of it.
And doesn't Kyle Eastmond know it......?
It's not that he is the best player to ever cross codes. Jason Robinson was a key member of the 2003 World Cup winning side and is undoubtedly the best of those to have crossed the divide. Henry Paul, Andy Farrell, Lesley Vainikolo and Shontayne Hape have all played union for England following successful rugby league careers, while Chris Ashton had one successful season at Wigan and can now be found bewildering clueless union defenders.
Yet Eastmond is the first high profile (well, relatively, more on which later) St.Helens player to make the move. All of which stings a bit given my natural bias and my long-time hatred of union. It's an appalling excuse for a sport which seems to serve no purpose other than to give doctors and dentists something to shout about when Chelsea aren't playing. And yet it continues to attract the cream of young rugby league talent thanks to the financial power it has acquired since following league into professionalism.
Like Ashton, Eastmond turns to the dark side at a time when he has achieved very little in rugby league. He has (or had) undoubted potential but at just 21 years of age he had yet to establish himself as a worthy successor to Sean Long in the scrum-half position. When Saints let Long leave for Hull they put a lot of faith in Eastmond's potential, a move which has now spectacularly backfired. It leaves them hanging on to a player who clearly has his mind elsewhere as they use the remainder of this season to try to find a replacement.
Though it may not suit the suits at Bath, it would be far better for Saints if Eastmond were to go now. He was booed by a section of the support during the disappointing 25-18 defeat to Warrington at the weekend, a situation which prompted him to head straight for the tunnel at the final whistle rather than stay on the field to thank the support. Coach Royce Simmons was unimpressed by this, launching a thinly veiled attack on Eastmond with meanderings about sticking together as a team and grumbles about the unsatisfactory nature of carrying a player with what was then an uncertain future. It's clear that Simmons would rather move on from Eastmond, though it looks as though he will be forced to stick by him until the end of 2011.
Eastmond has immediately made noises about promising to give his very best for the remainder of the season. This might be considered a small mercy given that there is no obvious candidate to replace him in the number seven jersey at present, but I for one would rather have a rudderless ship than persevere with a player who clearly has no desire not only to play for St.Helens (a heinous crime in itself) but to even play the sport of rugby league! No player is bigger than the club, let alone the sport, and in drawing out this ridiculous transfer saga Eastmond has shown little respect for the club he recently alleged that he 'loved', nor the game itself. No doubt the player's agent, a certain Mr Offiah, has been more than instrumental in securing a deal with the rah-rahs. And we all know how much he loves St.Helens, not to mention his penchant for a wedge of cash. Ten percent, anyone?
Cathartic as it is, Eastmond-bashing will not stop similarly talented players from making the same choice in the future. Notwithstanding the money available in union, that game somehow enjoys a greater public profile and can make superstars of it's top performers almost overnight. Ashton's tedious try celebration has received more press coverage over the last two months than anything achieved by a rugby league player at the start of the new season. In addition, you can barely switch on your television these days without seeing Gavin Henson, Austin Healey of Matt Fecking Dawson engaging in some inane brand of 'reality entertainment'.
I'm not sure I want to see James Graham on 'Hole In The Wall' or 'Strictly', but I do think that he and his contempories deserve a little higher profile than they are currently afforded. Yet until rugby league develops a credible international structure the fact that these are among the fittest and best athletes in sport is likely to remain lost on most of the population. Currently only three nations (Australia, New Zealand and England......just) play rugby league to a high level internationally, a situation perpetuated by the governing body's weakness in allowing players to switch international allegiances almost willy and indeed nilly. You can't continue to allow the Fijis and the Tongas of this world to be used as stepping stones to the Australian national side and expect to have a truly global game at the end of it.
And doesn't Kyle Eastmond know it......?
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