the saddest open

We had friends round yesterday for a late and lazy lunch. I haven’t drunk as much wine in ages and today I’ve felt pretty jaded to be honest. But first thing this morning I checked out the BBC sport website to find out how things worked out at the Open. I was rather hoping to find that Ross Fisher had won it and had had to miss the presentation ceremony to dash to be at his wife’s side as she was about to have a baby. It would have made for some great headlines – ‘Birth of an Open Champion’ and all that. And if Fisher hadn’t won it then I would have been almost as happy to see fellow Englishman Lee Westwood win his first Open.  But if truth be told I was kind of hoping to read that Tom Watson had defied sporting logic to win his 6th Open at the age of 59. 

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sport strop

Well it’s already been one heck of a weekend for sport; Adebayor’s got his dream move to Manchester City as Mark Hughes continues to build a team around the talents of a galaxy of exceptionally sulky strikers. He might have just the 10 (!) at his disposal but surely it’s only a matter of time before Thierry Henry  joins the sour puss Gorton gang. Meanwhile down at Lord’s the England cricket team are terrorising the mighty Australians at the tourists’ spiritual home and banker fixture. And for the second Test in a row they’ve managed to really piss off spikey Aussie captain Ricky Ponting, providing a delicious added bonus. And finally at the Open in Turnberry Tom Watson defies the years to lead the field going into the final day. Can he become the oldest winner ever of the old claret jug… well we shall see but his demeanour and performance on the first 3 days – particularly some of those outrageous long range putts – has been a joy to watch. But not nearly as much as seeing Woods, Poulter and Montgomerie all miss the cut and storm off in a triple salko strop.  Ah the sporting hissy fit. I thought we’d lost it when the pouty master signed for Real pain in the arse Madrid but the sporting gods have been kind to us. Sulky days are back again. Whose bottom lip quiver makes your day?

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spilling the beans

Have you caught the stuff in the press these last few days about those at the very top of our primary sports criticising each other? In the Sundays we saw both Lawrence Dallaglio and Mike Catt (both of whom I have lots of time for) criticising the England team manager Brain Ashton for his ineffective leadership during the RWC, in their autobiographies released now they have announced their retirements from the international game. This came on the heels of former England cricket team coach, Duncan Fletcher, announcing in his autobiography that his captain during the disastrous Ashes series, Freddy Flintoff, was irresponsibly pissed for much of the time.