25 August 2003
It looks like Rangers are set to lose Barry Ferguson. No matter your opinions on the club (institutionalised bigotry) or the man himself (complete tosser), there has to be some element of disappointment.
Here was a player — an excellent player — who’d joined the club he supported as a youngster, become a fixture in the team early in his career, and was set to stay there until he retired, likely becoming a club legend in the process. Think of Paolo Maldini, of Matthew Le Tissier, of Raúl. Don’t think of Ferguson, though: he’s off, saying that he needs to play in more competetive competitions (if that isn’t a tautology).
It’s not all his choice, though. Time was that Rangers could have just said ‘no, you’re not going. Look, we’ll buy a quality player from abroad’ . Not anymore. They’re in dire financial trouble, desperately needing an away win (or high-scoring draw) against FC Copenhagen to give them a share of the Champions League pot of gold.
At ten past nine UK time this evening, the men’s 100m final will take place in Paris. Dwain Chambers, Tim Montgomery, Kim Collins, Deje Aliu, Bernard Williams, and Darrel Brown will all be there. Jon Drummond won’t; he was disqualified in the heats yesterday for a false start. This decision, and his over-the-top rection to it, caused the race to be delayed by almost an hour.
Perhaps that doesn’t sound too bad: after all, athletics meetings usually take up a whole evening. What’s an hour between friends? But 100m runners warm up specifically for a certain time, and they can’t remain warmed up and ready for more than ten or fifteen minutes. If this schedule is thrown out of line, there’s a greatly increased risk of injury.
So it was bad for the remaining athletes. It was also bad for athletics, and for Paris’s Olympic bid. Bad for athletics because, frankly, the false start rule — once anyone false starts then it’s one false start and you’re out for the rest as well — is a joke: it’s not implemented in the USA, it’s not fair, and it’s not sensible.
Bad for Paris’s Olympic bid because the crowd were responsible for at least ten minutes of delay, booing whenever the athletes approached the blocks, demanding that the Jamaican, Asafa Powell, be reinstated (he couldn’t because of Drummond’s antics). Even when implored by home favourites Eunice Barber and Ronald Pognon to just shut up, they continued, all in front of Jacques Rogge.
England’s ability to, from good positions, not only fail to win a match but somehow conjure up a loss, is baffling. Well it isn’t really, because there are two words that have been bandied about a lot lately, for a reason: line and length.
An explanation for those who don’t follow cricket. These are the two things a bowler needs to get right more than anything else. Without a good line, you will bowl wides, allow the batsmen to leave dangerous balls, and let them chase down the bad ones with abandon. Without a good length, you either bounce the ball over the batsmen’s head — or in range of a pull — or you let them hit it on the half-volley. When a pitch is as unpredictable as the one at Headingley was, they’re just about all that’s required, but England couldn’t manage it.
Actually, one person could: the increasingly-excellent Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff. He’s not Botham, but he can bowl with pace and accuracy to contain oppossing batsmen, and when he’s batting he does give the ball an almighty whack.
But the rest of our bowlers? Lacking practice, lacking confidence, and lacking experience.