The greatest …
During the lockdown three friends of mine invited sports lovers to offer their suggestions on lists covering the greatest woman sportswoman/cricket side etc.
It was intended as just a bit of fun but, reflecting the testiness and strain of confinement, not everyone saw it that way.
To continue the theme, I sometimes do an exercise to decide my “Best Ever” team(s).
I currently happen to be in email contact with some Kiwi mates, one of whom is a distinguished coach, and ran past them my best All Black side, namely:-
Don Clarke
Lomu, Conrad Smith, Cullen, Willliams
Carter, Laidlaw
Gray, Fitzpatrick, Woodcock
Meads, Retallick
McCaw, Mexted, Jones
Those who know more about rugby than me judged that Clarke was too slow and Colin Meads too short for the modern game.
Some regarded Nonu a better centre than Cullen; Kirwan a better winger than Lomu; Marshall an improvement on Laidlaw; and Zinzan Brooke one on Murray Mexted.
Though harmless fun, the issue of greatness across the eras is a serious one.
I remember being in the company of footballer Johnny Haynes who said he would have preferred playing in a time of better pitches, lighter balls and more protection from referees.
There is also one’s own preferences.
My decade of greatest sporting awareness was the 1960s.
I can reel off the names of the West Indies and Aussie tourists of that era, the Spurs “Double” side, the Manchester United team that won the European Cup in 1968 and the Glasgow Celtic one of the previous year.
I can recall almost all of Brian Lochore’s All Blacks.
Yesterday I was with Jack Russell on West Wittering Beach.
It’s a place he likes to paint. On the journey to it I composed my best ever Gloucestershire cricket side.
As usual with such compositions, there are is a core of indisputable choices, namely: WG Grace, Wally Hammond, Gilbert Jessie, Zaheer Abbas, Tom Graveney, Mike Proctor, Jack Russell himself, Courtney Walsh and David Allen. Jack added Kevin Curran, ‘Syd’ Lawrence, Bill Athey and Arthur Milton to the mix.
With such greats it’s hard to understand why Gloucestershire is one of only three counties never to have won the Championship (Somersets and Northants are the other two).