Sport: March 2008 Archives
Think back to Linford in Barcelona, Kelly in Athens, Thompson in LA and Redgrave, well, everywhere. The Olympics are back this year, and we have a national treasure ready for his first act.
British gold medal hopes are a rarity, but that’s not the only reason we get so excited by sports like curling once every four years. In the main it’s due to the stupendous, behemothic and magnificent gravity of the whole occasion. Footballers can screw up but then make up for it when next Saturday comes. But if a sprinter doesn’t ‘go on the B of Bang’, as Colin Jackson puts it, he has to live with failure for another four years; and what’s more, if an athlete has a ten year career, then they may only get two shots at glory. That’s why the Olympics are so huge: it’s the ultimate test, the culmination of four years work in one moment of exertion.
Tom Daley might just be the next big thing in Britain’s Olympic history. He will be fourteen when he competes in the diving event this summer, so, by the time he’s 18 in 2012, he might have as many gold medals as Matthew Pinsent because he competes in both the individual and synchro events. It’s one of those situations in our mad culture of creating sporting icons, a bit like “the dream that was Rome” in Gladiator. “Anything more than a whisper and it would disappear, it was so fragile.”
Well the whispers are becoming pullout features and TV interviews as the summer draws near. The boy himself is calm, even if we ourselves are getting a bit silly. His humble confidence bears the hallmarks of Redgrave. Will he ‘arise Sir Tom’ by the time he gets his A-level results? Probably not, but we wait with baited breath for the barminess in Beijing to begin.
So ‘Grand Slam Super Soccer Sensational Sublime Stupendous Sunday’ has been and gone. And the Premier League continues to insist that all fixtures are drawn at random using some special machine they keep at HQ. Oh look, would you believe it, the Big Four have been drawn against each other on the same day. Oh and look again, it’s on Easter Sunday. Of all the days eh? Wasn’t that the second ‘G.S.S.S.S.S.S.S’ we’ve had this season? Random? Hardly.
Anyway, what of it? Well, as always, it’s not the football everyone’s talking about but the referees, only this time for the right reasons. Liverpool fans will disagree with me, I’m sure, but Steve Bennett got it spot on at Old Trafford on Sunday. We can’t have it both ways, you see. Have you seen the pictures of Ashley Cole gesticulating at the ref last Wednesday as if to say, “All ball ref,” or more likely, “I got the ball you f***** p***”? If that’s what you get when you blatantly risk not just a red card but, more importantly, the career of the lad whose knee your studs were aimed so squarely at then it will take an iron fist to change what was fast becoming an epidemic of dissent. We can’t pine wistfully for the days of well mannered players and jolly good decisions only to berate a referee, as some have, for ruining a game by drawing for his cards.
The whole thing reminds me a little of a similar situation in Paris back in 2006. There we were, cramped around a TV back home, settling in for a game between two of the finest footballing sides on earth: Arsenal vs. Barcelona in the Champions League final. And what a game it was shaping up to be: Barca bristling with ability, the Wenger pups gradually coming into their own. And then, all of a sudden, Ronaldinho shakes off a challenge in midfield and slides in Samuel Eto’o. The world rises to its feet, Eto’o controls the ball, and Jens Lehman brings him down. Now, at this precise moment in time, YOU are the referee, Terje Hauge. You have two options: blow the whistle right away for what was a clear foul and deal with Lehman accordingly; or play on, see what happens, and bring the play back if needs be. What would you have done? Hauge chose the former, effectively destroying the game as a spectacle in the process. Had he waited a moment longer he would have seen Ludovic Giuly put the ball in Arsenal’s net. Oh, the irony of it.
But Lehman was gone, and the plight of referees made glaringly obvious. The thing is, it’s never as simple black and white, yes or no. There are times when a ref must weigh up all number of factors and make what is, in fact, a creative decision based on what he sees and feels. That’s why there are good refs and bad refs - because results rest on one man’s interpretation of the beautiful game. Of course, there will be times when rules will be rules, when a ref must choose to make a stand not just for the good of the game he oversees, but for the good of the game at large. And for that, Steve Bennett, we commend you.
(Just a shame it had to happen to Javier Mascherano - a player we admire!)
Let us know your thoughts.
This is the most philanthropic time of year. We tend to be a bit introspective about our lives as we see sportsmen and comedians ‘doing their bit’ for charity. We’re soon back at work though, maybe having made a donation, safe in the knowledge that the fractured world is being healed by our efforts.
For some people though, philanthropy is a way of life. A children’s charity called Touraid has been set up by Andy Berry and Nick Avery to give children from third world countries the chance to establish educational and social links to children and schools in England. A bold mission statement that really comes to life when you realise that sport is the catalyst for all of this.
Kids from Rwanda, Swaziland, Cambodia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, India, Zambia, Romania, Kenya and South Africa have undertaken the tour of a lifetime as they played an international rugby tournament at the same time as the World Cup in 2007. The fact that two teams of children from Rwanda and Cambodia played each other on English soil is as far-fetched as it is brilliant and Touraid continues to change lives. The organisation is supported by the likes of Fergal Keane, the BBC special correspondent who was instrumental in enabling the Rwandans to gain visas for the UK:
“These are kids from both the Tutsi and Hutu tribes. They are the children of the perpetrators and victims of genocide, and here they are coming to England - together - to play rugby. Doesn’t it make you weep?”
Like any charity, Touraid relies on the goodwill and determination of others to keep going. Please have a look at www.touraid.org and be inspired...
He’s called Felix Zenger, he comes from Finland and he can do both this:
And this:
A philistine like me would bring these tricks out at parties and completely devalue them. On the flip-side, a devalued Zenger copy would still take my current party trick (running man into robot-dance into forward roll culminating in cramp) to the cleaners.
