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. Still can’t quite imagine the fans chanting ‘your third-quarter forecast is un-be-lieve-able’, but if anyone can get a kick out of the boardroom performance, it’s the North London literati, twitterati and bonused-up banking Maserati-ati.
Hats off too to Danny Cipriani, who’s been spending a lot less time being photographed at Bungalow 8 with Kelly Brook (our loss) and more time turning in the kind of performances that surely only, well, Martin Johnson could possibly ignore ahead of the autumn internationals. In a world where James Haskell is getting his kit off for the Sunday papers while Cipriani is living the quiet life putting in the hard tackles on the pitch, the world must surely be spinning on some strange new axis.
And finally to Sea The Stars. This magnificent Irish-trained colt has been a gleaming model of virtue all season. Competing at every distance from a mile to a mile and a half, and winning all with a bit to spare, five out of five Group 1s ain’t bad. I first backed him at 9s in the Guineas, and have kept the faith ever since, though at prices a fraction of that. Now only Sunday’s Arc beckons before going out to stud, and even at 4-5, he’s hard to resist. The only thing that could possibly stand in the way of John Oxx’s titan, the best in a generation, is some kind of scandal. And we wouldn’t get one of those in racing, would we?
Comments