This and that

Like many, though not as devotedly as Ivan Conway and Alan Tanner, I am following the Championship with interest particularly the race for the play-offs which is boiling up nicely. Last night Huddersfield in 3rd place played lowly Bristol City and Reading in 5th went to Sheffield Wednesday 6th.

My plan was to follow the games on Radio 5, with one eye on the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Bay Hill and do some general admin: to use the lingua franca of our age multitasking. This plan was thwarted as Radio 5 were covering live the final match of the Women’s Six Nations. I would be interested to know what the listening figures are.

Perhaps the power that be, Barbara Slater (Head of Sport), is less interested in the listenership or concerned that the BBC is a public corporation largely funded by you and I and her mission is to give woman’s sport and female broadcasters more of a platform. I suppose I could have switched to local radio but annoyed I followed the golf with BBC website on my iPad.

I enjoy golf as there is real deference to its history. Thus it was that golfers spoke of being honoured to be invited to Arnie ‘s very own course. He was the first marketed mega global sportsman guided by Mark MacCormack. The Seve Trophy has sadly not attracted the same level of participator the Great Man deserved and there was argument over the event between the the European Tour executives and the Ballesteros brothers.

However the Bay Hill is a big tourney in the States even with the absence this time of Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson. Arnie’s grandson Seb Saunders is a pro golfer on the main tour and he told the story of ringing his grandad and enquiring whether it was convenient to speak. Arnie said yes but he was with the President. Only Arnie Palmer is big enough to take a call before the President for his grandson.

I also caught some of the Cheltenham festival. I place myself firmly in the tv watching camp not the course attendee. I had too many uncomfortable days at Cheltenham of crowded trains with drunks, queues for buses to leave, more drunken cavorting on the course and male bonding of the laddish kind. In fact the racing is top notch with that final lengths up the hill testing the nag’s stamina. Pargie marked my card none too successfully but the event was well covered by ITV and a great tv spectacle