More humiliation for an England sporting team at the hands of a country we would long ago have considered unworthy to be on the same pitch. And yet is anybody really surprised?
Sport at the highest level in England is awash with cash and yet our achievements across the sporting spectrum are dismal given the resources we have at our disposal.
Save for the Rugby World Cup in 2003 won by a talented team driven by an intelligent and inventive coach – who promptly lost his job – can you name anything of note that we have won during the last few decades?
Our national game is football and we are currently ranked 17th in the world.
It cannot be pure coincidence that sport has been so belittled for generations and reduced for many to simply something you can watch on television.
We are great at putting on a party but utterly useless at providing opportunity to our young as I have written endlessly about.
Governing bodies are bloated and staffed by “jobs for the boys” more concerned with writing reports, compliance, political correctness and creating paper chases than actually doing anything to challenge why our kids don’t play sport.
Over 90% of kids have no access to competitive school sport so just how much talent are we missing? We deny talents we will never ever witness as they simply have no chance to flourish.
Sport has become the domain of the privileged not the masses and money has bred complacency and incompetence at the very top.
Cue the ECB’s response with expensive consultants lining up to produce glossy reports full of face saving bollocks. And come 2019 when we stage the next World Cup a new rule – the host nation shall automatically qualify for the final!
Footnote
Having just seen the ECB’s “model” registration form for junior cricketers which we are “encouraged” to use, there is a clue as to why we are so crap at cricket. Clearly, we are spending far too much time and money on employing idiots to create forms the length of a bedtime story.
These people must think we have nothing better to do! (You don’t do you? Ed)
The Joys of Reproduction
I had been watching her for several weeks now, snatching glances from my bedroom window and occasionally offering longing looks as I stood over the kitchen sink. Each week that passed her beauty came flowing back as her wondrous fertility awoke from slumber.
Finally, it was time to lay my hands on her and feel her yield to my touch; she was cold at first but as I probed she became soft, moist and eventually crumbled to my touch.
I slipped a finger in and probed, wiggling it about and soon we were both delirious with joy as another summer of passion was about to consume us. She spewed moist, warm life all over me and I tingled as I knelt.
It was time to plant the onions again!
Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Last night’s BBC One Question Time was from Leeds and featured the usual assortment of loons – I mean the panel not the audience – but there was one part of the debate that really made me sit up, stew and eventually rumble.
A young and articulate Muslim woman from my hometown asked why it was that people she knew were actually leaving to go fight with ISIS. Why did they feel the need to do so and should we not – as a society – seek to understand them better?
She contended that she considered them disillusioned and without a place in society. As ever, the assorted mainstream politicians flapped around for the safe ground. Only Ian Hislop, Editor of Private Eye had anything like a coherent reply pointing out that the paradise they were being promised might not actually exist in reality.
We enjoy a free and largely civilised society which, whilst far from perfect, affords liberties most people across the globe can only dream of. We have relatively free speech and, if you work hard, then you have a chance to progress though nothing is guaranteed.
Most of us operate within the accepted order of society. Of course some abuse this from top to bottom but equally the majority have to get on with it.
Generations of political correctness have created a sense of entitlement within some communities and a belief that, with regard to certain issues, they are above the law. Those in authority at a national and local level have pandered to this and ducked their collective responsibilities woefully.
Quoting UK Foreign Policy as a reason to want to destroy your country of birth is also just not acceptable. Governments do things in our name many of us abhor but we live in a democracy and we have the right to exercise our vote.
We have pandered for too long to a small minority that have had far more focus than the law-abiding and peaceful majority. Life is short and should be enjoyed where possible but cannot always be fair.
If you polled the millions of migrants that have settled in the UK in the last few decades as to whether they would prefer to return home my guess is that you would get a majority vote to stay put that Cameron and Miliband can only dream of.
There is an old Yorkshire saying; “if you don’t like it, lump it!”
Indiana Sutty and The Lost Bag
The second indoor net of the season and a welcome return for Sutty, member of the 2009 title winning team but absent from the game for a couple of seasons.
Preparing in the true spirit of most club cricketers Sutty had left it to Sunday morning to remember he had “stored” his bag of gear in his cellar…or rather abandoned it and left it to rot for the last two years.
In the damp darkness of the cellar, Sutty fished about with his torch and finally found the ancient treasure. He opened the bag nervously and peered inside only to find it overrun by all kinds of creepy crawlies.
Taken aback he decided to shake out the contents but the handles came straight off in his hands as the crumbling remnants of his entire cricket kit remained stuck to the floor. A variety of creatures that would have fascinated Sir David Attenborough ran to all corners of the cellar as Sutty screamed out in horror.
He arrived at nets ashen faced and in need of some new Villas gear which Sales Director Sam was pleased to be able to offer.
Another good turnout and the return of the Villas very own star of The Apprentice, CEO ASDA (Pudding Division) Luke Stockill. Now I’ve known Luke since he was knee high to a jam roly-poly and always knew he would climb the corporate staircase to fame and fortune.
However, not many of us really knew what Luke did to get the flash car working for the giant supermarket business until The Apprentice featured contestants having to design and pitch a new range of puddings to three major supermarkets.
Suddenly, there was Luke as Chief Pudding Tester; is there a better job on the planet? So Luke spends his working week surrounded by puddings and his Saturday afternoons in summer in a dressing room full of them.
Nutty Professor Rob was there again entertaining us all but the substitutes bench was strangely empty with no sign of Molly at all, so unusual to be grounded in March.
Rumour had it that Carol had purchased a rogue copy of Fifty Shades and the big man was strapped to the radiator in his long johns. What the woman would do to stop him getting a beer.
In limped Rehaan another member of the 2009 side, sidelined for now with a broken leg but still looking as if he could outsprint one or two of us.
New skipper Joe has just had a cast off (wrist) and casually remarked of another (female) “you ought to have seen what I left in my bed to get to nets this morning”. With Joe that could mean anything from last night’s curry to most other forms of deposit, dead or alive.
I managed to avoid having to walk the walk this week offering my £2 as a donation of sorts as half-blind and still half-drunk are not generally a good combination for facing the firing squad.
This weekend it’s back to abstinence and praying for survival.
A Right Tool
Given my recent interest in DIY (one drill purchased, still unused, probable Xmas gift to as yet unknown recipient) I took a trip to Wickes and stared like a kid in a candy shop at aisle after aisle of unfathomable objects.
And then I saw them; shelves full of these mysterious boxes designed for the man who has nothing better to do than buy screws. I wanted one so much it ached even though I have no tools and only one old ice cream tub with an assortment of useless screws.
It was the Old Man who saved the day, generously offering to pass on at last his old toolbox, originating some time around World War Two.
And what a creation; fold out doors like a De Lorean car, remnants of rusty screws and tools and now all mine! I rushed home with it determined to empty my old Adidas boot bag (my old toolbag) of its contents into my new companion.
I have decided to give it a rub down and a respray before I continue my assault on the aisles of Wickes, B&Q et al. It is indeed a new dawn.
Surely Not?
Taken from a BBC website article, it just goes to show you never quite know who you have in your midst…read on.
John Brennan, a member of President Barack Obama’s inner circle and his top counter-terrorism adviser, is to be officially nominated to direct the Central Intelligence Agency.
During his time with the Obama administration, the 57-year-old played a critical role in the planning of a May 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. He has also led the administration’s efforts to curb the growth of terror groups in North Africa and the Middle East.
All this from a B&B in Ilkley…remarkable!
PS – obviously with President Obama’s permission, JB has been putting up some shelving in the home dressing room this winter. Visitors are being charged £5 a viewing to come see this modern take on contemporary carpentry before we sell the construction to The Tate Gallery for the abstract section.
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