Well, that wasn’t too bad then. The nameless sense of dread that seizes you at the start of each football season — you know, too many overtattooed men chanting En-ger-land, too many managers bitching at refs and each other, too many twerps earning too much money — all dissipated in a few minutes of sublime passing by Arsenal. And Wayne Rooney’s start promised so much for the rest of the season, as he sets out his stall as a true World Cup winner for England. This helped to make up for Rafa Benitez’s return to form, moaning as usual, and seemingly stuck in denial of the real problem — that he’ll miss the brilliance of Xabi Alonso.
It was a weekend of staggering sporting revelations. The beautiful, charming and extravagantly gifted Jessica Ennis coming home for richly deserved gold in the heptathlon at Berlin. The awesome Usain Bolt, mouthing ‘I’m ready… are you ready?’ to the cameras before demolishing the world 100 metres record. Tiger Woods revealing that even he can mess up some straightforward putting, and deciding, just as I was investing rather heavily, that this PGA was to be the one Major which he wouldn’t win after leading at the start of the last day.
The most shocking (and farcical) has been the detritus from the very nasty ‘bloodgate’ scandal at Harlequins rugby club. The ’Quins winger Tom Williams was taken off at the end of a Heineken Cup game against Leinster for a blood injury, allowing a recognised kicker on for a possible winning drop goal. Except Williams didn’t have a blood injury. He’d hidden a capsule of fake theatrical blood in his sock, popped it in his mouth, and was led off with ‘blood’ spewing everywhere. And then in true rugby style he winked at the bench as he spat out some red ‘liquid’. Jesus, how stupid can you get?
So far the scandal has resulted in a presumably career-ending ban for ’Quins coach Dean Richards, the once hugely respected Leicester, England and Lions forward. Williams has had his ban cut from a year to four months, presumably because he was only acting under orders — though, heavens above, he should have had the balls to tell his bosses it’s cheating and he didn’t want to do it. There’s been the usual crowd of rugby men popping up to say ‘calm down, calm down, it happens all the time, we’ll sort it out’.
Well, no you won’t. There’s a terrible level of cheating here, involving complex fraud, high-level personnel, and a damnable detachment from the spirit of this most noble of sports. And why the theatricals? Any right-minded cheat would have just limped off with a bogus hamstring strain. Is there something rotten creeping into the heart of rugby?
So the England selectors have spoken, and South African (sorry, ‘South African-born’) Jonathan Trott has to step up for the Ashes decider at the Oval. Hmmm. Now the Australians’ ban on sledging seems to have been firmly confined to the footnotes of Ashes history, Ricky Ponting and his mates are probably working on a few choice greetings for when the Warwickshire man steps out at No 4 or 5. ‘Hey mate, I thought we were supposed to be playing England?’ or, ‘Didn’t we beat you guys on your home turf last winter?’ On the other hand, as Justin Langer pointed out in his fabulous leaked memo, an Englishman tends to look at his bootlaces when the going gets rough. You wouldn’t say the same thing about South Africans though. And Trott, who has been an astounding run accumulator in the county game, seems to be a sturdy sort of soul. Let the eye-balling begin.
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