Williams It Was Really Something

I find myself conflicted by Wimbledon.

There’s so much about it that makes my Northern working-class gut retch acrid bile. Yesterday the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (and if you’re a true blue-blood when you get a title the lackeys just say ‘pick a town, any town’) got front-row seats because... because, I dunno, his Mum loved the tennis, didn’t she? Cue, moist eyes and me missus grabbing for the Kleenex.

Murray gave them a bow – it must’ve been sarcastic, surely – and I thought they least they could do was bow back, or tell him to stop being so feckin’ stupid. But if you’re brought up that way you just do an infinitesimally small nod as if somehow you deserve it.

I mean all the great and the good have been there to watch, haven’t they? – Bob ‘Wake Me Up When He’s Finished’ Willis, Dermot O’Leary (the little plank at the start of X-Factor), erm.... oh you know, all of them. It’s like one of them ‘orrible ITV C-list festival shows ‘An Audience With Andy Murray’.

Oh and Billie-Jean King was there – still looking like the scariest schoolma’am in the history of American education.


She’s regarded with great fondness by the commentators, with much being made of her ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘enthusiasm’. The implication is that she’s one hell of a bore.

'Course Wimbledon holds on to its traditions like a drowning man clinging to driftwood. Rafa Nadal is defending the Gentleman’s Singles which actually makes it sound like a website detailing exclusive public conveniences for closet homosexuals. The women compete for the Ladies’ title. Ha! That’s no lady, that’s a screaming Eastern European banshee.

Everyone’s still wearing white - presumably cos it looks proper against the green of the grass. I couldn’t give a toss what they’re wearing although I don’t think Venus Williams was helped by trying to play tennis in a lace bin-bag.

There’s also the major bug-bear of hearing two-bit also-ran former British number threes chuntering away about players whose deeds far exceed anything they’ll ever do. Like sparrows giving flying advice to albatrosses.

You watch the tired litany of English wild-card holders all bombing out in the first round and you know for a fact that in 2020, half of them’ll be working for the BBC for 2 weeks of every year.

And there’s the fans, bless ‘em, queuing up in their little tents and looking for all the world like the bit of Glasto that’s set aside for the Women’s Institute. (Incidentally, watched a bit of U2 and, like avocadoes and Little Britain, I’m still at a loss as to why they’re so popular. Beyonce, on the other hand... ha-cha-cha-chaaaa!)

And yet despite all the hackles on me back, it’s a fantastic tournament. This may have summat to do with the fact that we live in rare old times as far as the men’s game is concerned. Jimmy Connors doesn’t seem to appreciate the rivalries at the top of the game cos they’re all so nice. I used to hate watching Connors play meself cos it was hard not to wish a decent barber on the basin-haired grunter.

Federer and Nadal (complete with perennial injury cloud) we know all too well. Djokovic is clearly a magnificent player but appears shorn of any personality on court, except when he’s smashing the shit out his racquet. (I empathise with the lad; it usually takes me four points – or pints - to get to that stage, not two and a half sets).

But yes, they’re all nice lads.

People in the game’ll tell you that the Williams sisters are nice lasses n all. I’ve no doubt they are. Trouble is no one seems to warm to them in this country. Now let me be frank. I think it’s cos Venus and Serena stomp up here with their strapping, let’s not deny it, black limbs and make one Caucasian after another look like they’re made from so many stale twiglets.

Elena Dementieva - serves like a girl.

Now I could take or leave the Jehovah’s Witness stuff but then again I don’t remember either of them sticking their tennis racquets into my hall to stop me closing my front door. And I could probably do without the use of ever-increasing decibels when the point gets very serious.

But there seems to be an underlying sense that their achievements need to be downgraded somehow. They did it their own way, their Dad learnt tennis from a book, they don’t play enough tournaments, they seem to be able to win them whilst managing a business and having a life... all most irregular.

And maybe, too, it’s the fact that there’s two of them. If one don’t get you the other one will. And somehow that’s not fair.

It’s bollocks of course. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate their achievements. They grew up in Compton, played a sport in which black people are as rare as a decent salad in Newcastle. They’ve contended with implicit prejudice, personal tragedy and, as Serena’s blubbing proved after her victory in week one, they care deeply about the sport they play.

I mean what's not to like?

Maybe, like the retrospective love-in that the (not very feminine) woman Martina Navratilova enjoys and deserves, there’ll come a time when a nostalgic fondness for the Williamses overcomes us all. I remember Chris Evert being ‘Miss Poker-Face’. Then she married John Lloyd and we loved her. Ahh!

Maybe Serena could take up with Jamie Murray, eh? Or we could just acknowledge that, even with injuries leaving them looking rustier than the bedsprings in a water bed, both Venus and Serena proved themselves to be two of sport’s greatest exponents and fiercest competitors.

In the meantime, Rafa’s foot’ll be fine and he – and Kvitova (who?) will be champions.

PS Is there a bit of you out there that wouldn’t mind if a bit of David Haye was left in Hamburg?

PPS Mike Doyle died today. A great player, one of them who, were it not for Bobby Moore, would’ve played for England many times.

The Fun of the FIFA Fiefdom

Now I don’t want to get all heavy this week but might I begin by quoting the FIFA statement on Honest Jack Warner: “As a consequence of Mr Warner's resignation, all ethics committee procedures against him have been closed and the presumption of innocence is maintained".

Well there you go - in FIFA land it appears that you can be as dodgy as a Peter Beardsley haircut for years and years but as long as you resign before they finish their investigation you are presumed innocent. Dunno about you but there’s something in that very statement that suggests Warner is guiltier than a shepherd caught with a ewe’s hind-legs in his welly-boots.

Vice President, Mr Warner, does not mean President of Vice.


Look out sepp n Jack. Check your watches are still on your wrists!


It strikes me that when the police come round my house looking for stolen goods I can just tell ‘em that I don’t live there and re-direct them to my blameless criminal record.

If I get caught speeding on a motorway I’m sure the Old Bill will be more than satisfied when I remind them that I gave up my driving licence a couple of days ago so the fines no longer apply.

Fact is, Blatter’s FIFA have such contempt for the traditions of law and ethics that they wriggle off the hook like greased Berlusconis at every turn.

Warner’s insistence that he’s done nowt wrong is accompanied by a curious mention of the FIFA tradition of offering ‘gifts’. I mean what the fuck does that mean, Jack? If you go for a meeting with Mr. Warner what can you expect? A paperweight? A signed photograph of Dwight Yorke? A contract for the building rights to a new football stadium/education facility?

I think, though, that it’s the blatancy that feels so insulting. Like Assad’s ridiculous speech blaming a little bunch of ‘saboteurs’ for a wholesale nationwide protest in Syria. Or the fact that the senior executives responsible for the Potters Bar crash all worked for Railtrack – which no longer exists – so they cannot be hauled in front of the beak.

I mean are we really supposed to be that thick?

Blatter’s been greasing so many palms nowadays that it’s impossible to shake anyone in FIFA by the hand without sliding off and hitting your chin on the million-dollar shagpile. The man who put the Swizz into Swizzerland is proving pretty well non-stick too. But anyone who believes the ethics committee operates independently of the Sepp-tic head must be lost in a cloud of hippy happiness somewhere in a field in Somerset.

And FIFA, remember, is an organisation that is intent on laying down codes of conduct to the game’s officials, its players, its managers. From what you can glean from this latest hollow joke of a ruling, that means keep diving, feigning, tugging and whingeing. Get away with as much as you can. It’s what football people do, isn’t it?

Meanwhile one of sport’s most fastitdious gentlemanly pursuits has got itself a new hero. Rory McIlroy, a leggy pixie of a man, tonked the field to all parts at Congressional last week.

Here's Rory modelling the new McIlroy Ear-Muffs

I’m not a golf nut. In fact I only have to see a Pringle sweater and I want to firebomb the nearest Edinburgh Woollen Mill. For me, the question ‘What’s your handicap?’ is right up there in the list of crap conversational ice-breakers with ‘What are you driving these days?’ and ‘You look a bit like that Gary Sinise fella out of CSI.’

(By the way my golf handicap is that I’m shit at it.)

Nevertheless you can’t help warming to the Tigger-toed lad from Holywood. Anyone who can smile while they’re earning vast sums of money has got to be welcomed. If only Andy Murray could summon up more than the odd rictus grimace, eh?

Plus McIlroy possesses that easiness of style which suggests that the golf fairies were at one end of his Moses basket when he was a gurgling babe, magicking touch into his fingertips. (I’m not sure what the golf fairies look like, mind, although I bet Ian Poulter has got the outfit somewhere.)

And of course, young Rory has turned around two terrible experiences – the last at Augusta was as bad it gets, and got stronger from it. When a lad like him plays in a way that a pitch n putt plonker like me can entirely empathise with, then you know the lad’s having the worst round since the Blue Bell ran out of beer on draught.

Even the American galleries were right behind him, although there wasn’t any home-grown talent to root for, was there?

How delightful it is to live in times where American sporting dominance seems to be on the wane! Wimbledon starts this week and the men’s champion has as much chance of being American as it has of being a pony.

All right the women’s champ will probably be a Williams – which most people have told me will be boring. Well you know what if it’s not a Williams it’ll probably be some six-foot-one inch blonde Eastern European with all the personality of a flagpole. So you takes your pick.

I mean who wants to spend two weeks looking at this?

If I had to choose a winner this fortnight, I’d go for the weather, narrowly followed by Nadal. I reckon Venus’ll win the lasses (they tend to share it out between them Williamses). There’ll be one British woman in the second round draw (Keothavong’s playing some other English lass who’s 2,376 in the world).

And Murray’ll make the semis. Sigh.

Meanwhile Villa-Boas has resigned as Porto coach and appears to be on his way to Stamford Bridge. He’s like Mourinho’s Mini-me. You wouldn’t be surprised if Jose’s funding a Mourinho-cloning laboratory would you? Be interesting to see how many of the old guard allow themselves to be lectured by a lad who’s barely out of his managerial short trousers.

Fact is, Chelski could do with an offload of the Drog, Lamps, Essien et al. Maybe the New Boy’ll make it happen. Interesting times.

Hamilton's Accidenticals

There are bad boys in all sorts of sport.

In some sports it doesn’t seem to harm you that much. Iron Mike Tyson was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Infamy – I mean Fame. Not sure whether Evander Holyfield’s earlobe has joined him there.

Robbie Savage seems set to be setting our teeth on edge on with his squeaky-balloon voice on 5Live’s airwaves for years to come.

John McEnroe has become just about the best former player turned commentator there is (apart from, of course, the mighty Richie Benaud, but then Richie never questioned the umpire’s seriousness).

And now motor racing has its own bad boy… Lewis Hamilton. ‘Is it cos I is black?’ he asked half-jokingly after the last race. To which I hope the stewards responded with ‘No, it’s cos you’re a twat.’

"And if he doesn't get out the way then I just ram him, right Boss?"

Even I have to admit that the Canadian Grand Prix was unbelievably exciting. The only thing that ever makes F1 interesting is rainfall. Personally I’d happily watch it if the half the contents of the Pacific Ocean was ritually doused on every track across the globe (especially if the Gollum of motor racing Bernie Ecclestone was underneath it).

But torrential downpours aren’t enough for Lewis. He’s driving like a steroid-pumped road-raging wanker in one of them not-quite-sports-cars that the Japanese build. I wouldn’t be surprised if he can’t hear instructions from his pit-lane cos he’s got some dog-awful Black-Eyed Peas cack blasting into his earholes.

I’m not sure it helps that the cars seem to have ads on them for beer. If I had a car with Singha written on the front in the rear-view mirror I’d be trying to get to the pub twice as fast meself. Maybe he should join another team. Red Bull gives you wings and given the places Lewis tries to overtake he’s going to bloody well need them.

As Niki Lauda said the point is that one day the lad’s going to kill someone. It’s not as if he’s one of them indestructible Chelsea tractors. It’s all well and good telling us that F1 fans love the overtakers. Fact is he’s on his way to the undertakers if he’s not careful.

Plus it was pissing it down. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to drive a car that quick. Me, I’m happy with summat that gets you from A to B, preferably driven by someone else so I can get stuck into my Singha beer.

But everyone knows you have to rein it in a bit when it’s chucking it down. It’s one of them eternal truths of the road – like motorway service station sandwiches are overpriced and you can’t get a decent pouring teapot at any of them. Or Nissan Micras are driven by old people. Or… stop me. I’m about to consumed by that horrible condition known as Clarkson’s Guff.

Fact is they’ll have to ban the lad if he carries on like this. And no, Lewis, it’s not remotely cos of the colour of your skin – it’s because of the colour of your fellow competitors’ trousers after you’ve loomed up their wing-mirrors.

On a note that is almost as life-threatening, can it be true that Alex McLeish is going to take up the reins at Aston Villa just weeks after taking his doughty alehouse team of Birmingham City down a division?

"How much more money am I gonnae get at Villa? This fuckin' much!"

In Brum that’s going to go down like a glass of pureed phlegm. Amazingly the board at St. Andrew’s saw fit not to sack him – which given he won a Cup seems reasonable. So for him to resign seems a tad shocking. (Mind you football managers these days are as expendable as paper knickers so it’s hard to blame them if they become a bit self-serving.)

Villa fans won’t want him anyway cos he’s of tainted stock. They didn’t want McClaren either. Houllier was welcomed with folded arms and half of them didn’t much care for O’Neill.

McClaren has of course weaved a strange course since he put down that brolly (or flew away on it like Mary Poppins). Of course if that particular McClaren had been being driven by Lewis Hamilton he’d have taken a few other managers out en route.
He’s now at Forest, which must be delighting the locals. And Villa fans too.

But Villa fans are amongst the hardest to satisfy, I reckon. They’re up there with the Geordie bottlers when it comes to having expectations that aren’t supported by any evidence whatsoever. Martinez would’ve been a good choice but he, unlike McLeish, has appreciated the loyalty shown to him and stayed with the Rainbow Coalition that is the Wigan Athletic squad.

Chances are that Villa fans would look a bit suspicious if Guus Hiddink walked through the gates at Villa Park with a spring in his step.

Still I have to agree that McLeish doesn’t seem a good fit. He seems to settle on big lunks who get the job done and when you look at the talented lads at Villa, who knock it about well on occasions, there’s going to be an almighty culture shift.

I mean if you want a manager who’s good with young players, happy to bring them through if he thinks they’re good enough, and has had success before in different leagues, then McClaren would be as good a pick as any.

He's back - the fella with the umbrella

The England debacle has done nowt for his reputation but frankly Capello’s England aren’t up to much are they? Maybe he’s just a victim of our expectation that cos we invented the game we should be the best at it.

Let’s face it, the best England players right now wouldn’t get into the first teams of many other national sides. After all, a lot of them play for Villa.