September 2008 Archives

Anyone still reeling from the humbling Ryder Cup defeat to the United States?
What a great sporting spectacle this biennial rivalry springs up; one sadly ruined this time around by crude, crass and disrespectful Americans.
As the post-mortem dissects Nick Faldo's ham-fisted involvement at Valhalla, his critics surfacing from all crevices to spout the vitriolic disapproval of his leadership, the real question that should be asked is why the Americans persist in encouraging such graceless - entirely graceless - scenes at a golf event.
If denigrating the sport into some kind of jingoistic rodeo is the only way the Untied States can win, we are better off without it.
In many ways the United States Ryder Cup team provided a microcosm of the country's self-interested and parochial outlook.
Take JB Holmes, as an example.
An out-of-shape man with a goatee - yes, a goatee - who prides himself on bashing the ball further than anyone else in the world.
If ever an image were needed to sum up America's foreign policy, surely this halfwit's desire to bomb first and worry about the consequences later provides the perfect advert.
There's more: In the absence of Tiger, Chad, JB, Hunter and Boo are surely names that epitomise America's continual bastardisation of the English language.
One assumes such monikers are seen as creative Stateside, in the same way their fans' tiresome chants of "U-S-A" and then, ingeniously, "Boo-S-A" never got boring. Not once.
Which bring us neatly on to Weekley - a man so powerfully thick that when he was asked by a journalist if he'd returned from the The Open in Britain, he replied "No, I was in Scotland."
Heaven knows, being intellectually challenged would never prevent someone from being a sporting role model, as the Premier League palpably demonstrates, but when stupid starts being celebrated, as it was at Valhalla in the shape of Weekley, the world of sport really does have problems.
If anything were responsible for crossing the boundary dividing acceptable and insulting in the Ryder Cup it was Weekley's inflammatory behaviour (and that of Paul Azinger, who encouraged supporters to cheer the Europeans' missed putts, for goodness sake).
Sadly for Europe, the corpulent huntsman has a deft touch around the greens, which he displayed emphatically by shooting a front nine of 29 (had it been scored) against Oliver Wilson in the Sunday singles.
His golf was magnificent; unfortunately, like the rest of the three-day event, the defining images of this Ryder Cup will not be about the golf.
That honour has gone to the idiot Weekley who assimilated riding his driver down the first tee.
Inciting galleries full of indecorous people with moderate IQs is always likely to cause its fair share of problems as years of football hooliganism in this country will testify.
But in golf? The sport old men take up to pass the time and temper their increasingly short tempers? It's just not on.
One would think the lessons of Brookline in 1999, when a phalanx of the players' wives ran on to the 17th green where Jose Maria Olazabal was still waiting to putt, would have stayed fresh in the mind.
Part of golf's appeal, believe it or not, is its arcane rules and etiquette: these are parts of the game an outside observer might find elitist, utterly pointless and desperately annoying - but that's the sport; that's the game.
Bad golf etiquette has become as obvious as bad table manners and, worryingly, is now just as common.
We all know the type of golfer or person I am referring to: the spitting, the swearing; obliviously walking across someone's line; not raking bunkers and the chronic failure to replace divots or repair pitch marks are the kind of faux pas committed by the same people who hold their knives and forks like pencils or those unaware that butter, when spread on roll, should have made its journey from dish to bread via a side plate.
To some such idiosyncratic behaviour may not be important. But it is.
Without the standards and rules designed to support culture and class we would degenerate into a morass of moribund morality.
This Ryder Cup was sport's equivalent to speaking with you mouth full.
People play golf because they like rules and sticking to them.
They provide order and play an intrinsic - albeit draconian - part in the sport's make up.
Without them golf cannot be defined as golf.
They are the intangible fabric that holds the sport together in the same way that a working and progressive society is underpinned by manners/culture/respect/tolerance/honesty.
Both are made irreparably weaker when etiquette is ignored.
Such core values are central to the past and future of golf as we know it - particularly when it comes to the Ryder Cup.
The venom which spilled out at Valhalla - from the shameful sledging of Lee Westwood to Anthony Kim's ignorance - crossed the divide.
It became an exercise in America flexing its muscle in the most undignified way.
This is not sour grapes.
An element of brashness is par for the course when to comes to Americans, excuse the pun, but even for them this went too far.
Samuel Ryder would be turning in his grave.

Worcester wing Chris Pennell has been one of the revelations of what promises to be yet another breakthrough season for so many of Warriors' home grown starlets.

The 21-year-old has come in for the injured Rico Gear and to say the former All Black has not been missed is to pay the youngster the highest compliment. It is well deserved.

His performances in defence, attack and with the boot have been first rate and his physical and psychological development suggest he is on the brink of becoming an established Premiership player.

But it wasn't always that way. Pennell's top flight debut, away to Bath in the first game of last season, was little more than a disaster.

Stationed at full back, he missed tackles, dropped high balls and was soon identified by the home team as the visitors' Achilles heel. In short his first appearance was a sheer nightmare.

However Pennell returns to The Rec on Saturday a changed man and determined to show the Bath supporters how far he has come.

In an intriguing interview he admits he lost faith in his ability before the game and he has vowed never to do so again.

Or download it here.">here

Here's an amazing statistic for you; this weekend, four of the six Premier League and Football League clubs in the West Midlands won.
Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Coventry City and Walsall all claimed three points, while West Bromwich Albion are excluded from this calculation because they were playing Villa.
Birmingham City were the only team to let the Post side down, losing 1-0 to Blackpool and, by all accounts, prompting Alex McLeish to unleash the verbal hairdryer treatment.
The good vibes even went further down the ladder with Kidderminster Harriers winning at Weymouth in Blue Square Premier and Solihull and the mighty Tamworth winning in Blue Square North.

Don't you just hate it when bloggers go quiet for over a month?
I can only apologise for the silence from this little corner of the web since the second week in August. I can truthfully put it down to a combination of holidays and ill-health and normal service should now be resumed, at least for the next couple of months until The Post sports desk undergoes major upheaval to coincide with the redesign of the paper as a whole.

It was enough to make grown men cry. To say it moved people whose hearts are normally granite would be an understatement but there it was, a simple on-line article, revealing the soul of Aston Villa in 50 moments.
Within hours word had spread amongst Villa supporters all over the globe - read this it will make you weep... said one email. A text from another - give or take a few expletives - suggested you literally had drop everything and read it now.

I joined the thousands who cursed the FA for selling the rights to England's World Cup qualifying away games to marginalised TV station Setanta Sport and lambasted the fact that such an important game as Wednesday night's crucial clash against Croatia could be viewed by such a potentially small audience. After all, England football matches are crown jewels in England's televised live sports, just as the Grand National and Wimbledon are.
As England is a football nation, the whole country should be able to watch our national team in action from the comfort of their own homes - or so I believed.
On Wednesday night I did something I hadn't done for a very long time; I watched the game from my local pub and called my mates, who I do not see that regularly even though they live close to me, to see if they wanted to join me. Every single one did - and they weren't the only ones.

When it came to county cricket selling its supporters short I thought I had seen it all - but events at the SWALEC Stadium in the past couple of days have surpassed even my low expectations.
At the time of writing it's lunch on day two. The sun is shining. There is no play. This is hardly a surprise.
During the eight hours of bright sunshine on day one not a ball was bowled; the outfield was too wet, according to the umpires.
The question dominating my thoughts is how the pitch remains so wet as to render conditions unplayable.
Somewhere along the line there has been some odd decision-making in the building of this fine stadium, rather cruelly described by one esteemed writer as "resembling a New Zealand outground", a barbed remark in reference to the country's cricket stadiums being purpose built and devoid of atmosphere.
That, however, provides the answer: this ground has been unfit for play, despite perfect cricket weather, because the new stands erected to help secure the venue's Test status have consequently ruined the ground's natural drainage.

Last weekend brought my first double header of the campaign and two completely contrasting matches.
Coventry's 16-0 victory over Cornish Pirates was as near to a thing of beauty as mud-splattered rugby players and single try games can be:

Or to download Ronnie McLean's thoughts right-click and save this link.

Meanwhile Worcester's appallingly off-colour first game of the season produced a dire defeat at Northampton in which Warriors were whistled off the park - particularly at the breakdown.

The crucial score came when Tom Wood was sinbinned.

To download Tom's account of the match right-click and save this link.

While Nick Faldo's controversial but understandable selection of Ian Poulter ridiculously dominates the headlines, it is the captain's fierce rivalry with his old American adversary that will go a long way deciding this Ryder Cup.

Go back to the Olympics in 2000.
Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell and Tim Foster's victory remains among my fondest sporting memories.
Indeed, I even have a signed photograph - probably a fraud - of the quartet hanging in my Hall of Fame, a wall in my home dedicated to sporting images.
It's a work in progress - but to give you an idea there is a signed picture of Brian Lara running to his 400th run against England at Antigua (definitely not a fraud); the now symbolic pose of Jonny Wilkinson striking the World Cup winning drop goal in 2003; a signed picture of swing bowler Alec Bedser playing his final county game at The Oval and the most stunning image of Tiger Woods driving down the Road Hole at St Andrews en route to his first Open victory.
There are others, notably Sonny Liston crashing to the canvas against Muhammad Ali; George Gregan, the world's most capped scrum-half; and Gianfranco Zola in action for Italy, but it's the picture of the coxless four collecing their medals in Sydney which has oddly struck me since Nick Faldo named his wild card picks for the Ryder Cup.
While the other pictures concentrate on the individual or personal achievement - the exception perhaps being Wilkinson's drop goal, although given his obsessive dedication to practise one could argue that moment was as much a triumph for the individual as anything else - the oarsmen represent the contrasting qualities and styles needed to make up an effective team.
While Pinsent dictated the tempo at which the crew rowed he was also responsible for providing power, as were Redgrave and Cracknell.
Foster's main input was more technical; to provide rhythm and timing, those most natural of sporting qualities, so the boat could move smoothly.
His waif-like frame against the giant statures of his fellow crew on the podium provides a starkly contrasting image in itself and, just like Lara, Ali, Gregan, Bedser and Zola in the Hall fo Fame, his inclusion among them is representative of the need for technique and skill in a sporting world continually yielding to power.
Being able to match styles is essentially what the Ryder Cup captain's job is all about.
Forget world rankings or favourites: that has never mattered in this competition, as Hal Sutton's decision to play Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson together at Oakland Hills in 2004 abundantly demonstrated.
In Paul Azinger, the United States have their most more attuned captain since Ben Crenshaw.
He and Faldo do not get on, a strained relationship which dates back to their feudal playing days.
Faldo's description of Azinger's game - "a baseball grip with a hatchet swing" - may not sound like much of a slur, but golfers are notoriously precious when it comes to their swing.
Azinger is no defenseless victim, however; if anything, he comes out on top in the verbal exchanges.
In rather prosaic terms, he has described Faldo as a "p****" in the build up to this event and someone universally hated by his generation.
That might explain why Faldo has opted for youngsters such as Poulter and Paul Casey as his wild cards rather than Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke; either way, his selections show the single mindedness and lack of sentiment that were his hallmarks as a player have not mellowed with age.
They made him the finest English golfer in history - but his playing days are gone and the problem for Faldo is that the Ryder Cup is all about emotion, sentiment and vision.
In contrast Azinger, a devout Republican, is an emotional, impulsive man: all stars, stripes, spangled banners and Long Live America.
In selecting the experienced Steve Stricker, bomber JB Holmes and the precociously talented Hunter Mahan, he has selected three players in form.
His fourth choice - Azinger demanded four - is Chad Campbell, one of the sweetest ball strikers and technically adept players on tour.
On the captain's orders the Valhalla course, a former US Open venue (meaning it will be long and tough), will have its fairways widened at the 300-yard mark to play to his team's strengths.
His side is a combination of bombers, ball-strikers, and the best in-form players in the world.
It's a potent blend and one that, buoyed by the jingoistic support expected from the bellicose residents of Kentucky, will make the United States a much more difficult proposition than many expect.

It was perhaps fitting that Amir Khan and Audley Harrison were boxing on the same card on Saturday night.
On the one hand you had a former hero from the Olympic Games with a distinguished amateur record who's been over-hyped, over-paid and over-rated since turning professional; and on the other hand you had Audley Harrison.
That may sound harsh - it probably is - but we have a habit of talking up our boxers.
Unlike Harrison, Khan has time to prove us wrong but one fears his failing was not getting outclassed by a decent opponent but that he has never possessed the true credentials to compete in the toughest and most unforgiving of sports.
We are told that he will be return stronger than ever - great boxers do, apparently - which is a theory as deeply flawed as it is unprovable.
Would Joe Calzaghe, Rocky Marciano or Floyd Mayweather Jnr have been better had they lost? No, of course not. Would we point to blemishes on their records as proof of their fallibility? Probably.
That is not to say that great boxers have not managed successful and admirable comebacks - but history dictates that only a few of those beaten remain judged by their achievements ahead of their failures: Lennox Lewis, Muhammad Ali and the Sugar Rays - Robinson and Leonard - are among the elite fortunate enough.
Even some of the finest boxers to grace the planet are remembered for their defeats.
Ricky Hatton's salient beating at the hands of Mayweather springs to mind as readily as his win against Kostya Tszyu, while the defining image of Roberto Duran - who famously quit against Sugar Ray Leonard - overshadows his victory against the same man, an otherwise fine career and a subsequent world-title winning comeback.
One fears it will be similarly unflattering images of Khan that remain fresh in our minds, regardless of what he goes on to achieve
Sadly, that might not be much given the worrying manner in which his so-called world-class capabilities have been brutally exposed since his arrival in the professional game.
Successful comebacks are one thing; a loss of invincibility for boxers is altogether another (has anyone seen 'Prince' Naheem Hamed since his humbling defeat to Marco Antonio Barrera?) and that is what Khan lost in some style in Manchester.
Can we ever say George Foreman was as good after his defeat to Muhammad Ali? Was Sonny Liston?
What about Bernard Hopkins, was he the same figher after back-to-back losses to Jermain Taylor?
The truly blessed can replace such memories by achieving magnificence elsewhere.
Ali's legacy has been built around his managing that more than once, most notably by avenging defeats to Joe Frazier and Ken Norton.
But what is noticeable about the great comebacks is that their architects had beaten the best in the world before and after they were forced to come back.
Khan cannot say the same: Prescott, 25, was not even ranked in the world's top ten before Saturday night and while the British fighter may be able to recover from this devastating blow, it's hugely doubtful he's good enough to erase this memory in the same way the truly great exponents of his art have done.
Khan might do okay, but okay in boxing is nothing.
That crushing blow from Prescott did more than knock him out: it shattered his dreams.