Spectator Sport | 3 October 2009

All good things must come to an end and so, sadly, do the mind-bogglingly scandalous things. Go on, admit it. We lapped up every twist and turn of Briatore’s turbo-charged chicanery. We marvelled at the sheer ridiculousness of the day-glo ‘blood’ spouting from Tom Williams’s mouth. We hissed at football’s foul play — from diving to stamping to sprinting-the-whole-length-of-a-pitch-to-gloat-at-the-racist-gooners-gate. What a humdinger. Lob in a cameo from Ponts to get the audience booing and you’ve got the must-see panto of 2009.

But scandal seems to be deserting us and filling the void come some terrific episodes of sporting virtue. You know, derring do, victory against the odds — all the stuff sport’s meant to be good at. And none are greater than the villain-turns-hero drama currently playing in South Africa.

A few weeks ago, England’s cricketers were literally self-destructing, Owais Shah crunching into Joe Denly in a kick-about before the Oval one-dayer, bending the latter’s knee to an angle that would have made Vinnie Jones come over a bit wobbly just watching. It wasn’t much better out in the middle, his batting partners rightly fearful that he’d get them, then himself, run out.

Fast-forward two matches and England have beaten Sri Lanka (third-favourites) and whopped South Africa (favourites) in their own backyard. It’s Shahmageddon. If you can pull Dale Steyn, one of the world’s fastest bowlers, for six, you deserve the odd blind eye to be turned when you, say, drop the opponents’ captain on his way to a ton.

Then there’s Arsène Wenger. A man so supremely confident in his philosophie sportif that he refuses to spend even when his club are making record profits. I’m not sure whether the football masses are meant to get worked up about spreadsheets rather than silverware, but when Wenger’s up against so many Arabian billions that we’ll soon be having Abu Dhabi derbies in the Screwfix Western League, it’s no mean feat for Arsenal to wind up £35 million in the black and still compete at the very top.