Back – and in the groove again
One of Frankie Howard’s signature catch-phrase lines was often deployed where – in a stand-up routine and/or a television sit-com – he “stepped out of character” to address his audience directly, made arch fun of someone and then, as his live (or television) audience burst into laughter at the gag, implored them “No don’t – it’s wicked to mock the afflicted …”
Today, as I make a return to this mighty organ by posting something for the first time in over two years, I’m conscious of carrying with a slight sense of Howard’s plea echoing in my ears as I type.
After all, there’s something to be said for the time-honoured advice “If you cannot say something positive about someone or something, don’t say anything at all”.
In these days of the Great Pandemic – as at all other times – in life in general, but especially in elite sport, money talks.
I’ve become extremely bored with the bleating coming from every corner of industry and every representative business body or committee that – for the good of the economy and/or the future prosperity of us all – the Government must release the UK population from their Covid-19 bunkers so that [add your favourite special interest business here] can be rendered safe from imminent terminal closure and/or penury.
I do find the “white noise” coming from these Jeremiahs somewhat tedious and irritating at a time when – through chance as much as any incompetence on the part of anyone – the nation is currently doing its “all hands to the pumps” level best to fend off the vicious “Third Wave” of the virus that hit us in December.
Meanwhile it is difficult to avoid noticing that the pile of fraudulent or “dodgy” furlough-funding claims made by career criminals and/or mere chancers on the one hand …. and quite legit household-name business names on the other, the latter often immediately followed by record “bonus” and/or “dividend” payouts to senior staff and/or shareholders … (all of them trying to take advantage of each and every successive Government funding support initiative) grows ever higher and more costly in terms of the billions of pounds they have cost the taxpayer.
But back to my topic for the day – the game of rugby union as it is played at elite level in England and specifically in the Premiership.
Within the Zoom group I belong to – consisting of former lounge bar regulars from my local pub the Frog & Bucket who join a regular Thursday night moan-in – I am far from alone alone in finding the business antics of Premiership Rugby and the travails of the Rugby Football Union over the past decade close to the final straw.
You begin to sense that maybe things are not quite as they should be when board-level former “gamekeepers” – having been eased out after years of seeming RFU inactivity, apparent financial mismanagement [cue reference to the Twickenham Stadium re-development overspend] and feebleness in business dealings with Premiership Rugby – then later turn up again having apparently simply “crossed the road” and taken up offers to join the “poachers” (Premiership Rugby).
Talk about ‘re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic’ – or should that read ‘re-arranging the “old farts” at board-level positions in English rugby union administration’!
And then we come to the quality of the rugby being played at elite level during the Covid-19 crisis in empty stadia.
I’ve got to be honest, I don’t watch rugby anymore these days, save by accident, on television.
The game has become stunningly boring. The rules aren’t being applied rigorously by the officials, defences rule everything, all tactics seemed to be learned by rote and the ball is either endlessly recycled and/or kicked away in tedious passages of glorified “kick-tennis”.
Furthermore, the days of being able to watch flair players capable of thinking for themselves and/or playing “off the cuff” have long gone. Those few that do get picked seemed to have been lobotomised and/or had their brains replaced with hard-wired computer programmes.
And so today I end by mentioned Harlequins FC – the club I spent slavishly supporting for a quarter of a century but no longer do.
The Quins used to have a reputation as posh dandies who played with a certain swagger and buccaneering elan. Frustratingly, they could seemingly beat the world one weekend and lose to a pub team the next, but whenever they took to the pitch at least you were guaranteed entertainment.
Their followers revelled in their “dashing” perception whilst everyone else either envied and/or hated us and always took delight in taking us down a peg or two.
But that was then.
These days Quins are just another Premiership club – a mid-tabler at best – and playing rugby by numbers, just like everyone else.
In the past week they’ve parted company with Paul Gustard, their head coach, and waved goodbye to former England winger Chris Ashton, who jumped ship yesterday and (probably with relief) joined Worcester Warriors with immediate effect on an eighteen months deal.
That’s a couple of deck chairs that have “gone overboard” … and thereby won’t need to be re-arranged like the remainder as the iceberg hoves into view on the horizon!
