Well, at least one Rooney did well this summer. That’s Martyn of course, one of the second tier of Britain’s medal winners at the European Athletics Championships who played a blinder to pick up an individual bronze and a relay silver in the 400 metres. The meeting was a simply glorious celebration of multi-ethnic harmony in Barcelona that was more or less enough to lift the nameless sense of dread that assails the soul at the prospect of a new football season.
Interviewed in a pair of mock giant black-rimmed glasses, Rooney explained that the whole team wore them one day as a tribute to their Dutch coach Charles van Commenee, who, said Rooney, found it all a bit of a giggle. It’s hard to imagine another, better-known foreign coach, Fabio Capello, having much of a cackle were his expensively assembled charges to try out a similar jape by all wearing their manager’s Marxist lecturer-style glasses.
So when we think of foreign coaches in Britain, park Fabio and think of Charles van Commenee who is tough, charismatic, successful and clearly admired by the people he coaches. I guess he earns in a year what Capello makes in a couple of weeks. He doesn’t mess about either. Van Commenee once said the public perception of athletes was of ‘wankers and pussies’, words which might more usefully be applied to Capello’s crew, and only this week van Commenee was blasting his sprint relay runners, men and women, as a ‘disgrace’. He had coached Denise Lewis to Olympic gold before becoming chef de mission for the Dutch at Beijing. Now he’s back with his first love, track and field, transforming an often underachieving British team. Before the Championships he said he wanted at least one gold; we ended up with six.
He has clearly built up a huge sense of camaraderie, some of it through his much vaunted ‘tough love’ — that’ll be the ‘disgrace’ bit I guess — and some through recognising individual needs, allowing brilliant Jessica Ennis to stay training in Sheffield, making hurdler Andy Turner believe in himself, and not forcing the outstanding 16-year-old sprinter Jodie Williams to come to Barcelona, thereby allowing her to compete at the world junior championships in Canada. Van Commenee has shredded the culture of underperformance in athletics, a culture which seems all too apparent in better-known sports like football and rugby. He has shaken up his sport, and driven through change. But maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on Capello, or Martin Johnson. Perhaps the suits and blazers of the football and rugby world are just too much for anyone: one former chief executive of the FA complained that he was neither chief nor an executive. It is hard to imagine van Commenee saying that.
Meanwhile, whatever you do, set the Teasmade in time to watch the decisive Tri-Nations game between New Zealand and the Wallabies on Saturday. It starts at 8.30, our time, in Christchurch, and if last Saturday’s encounter is anything to go by, this rematch mustn’t be missed. The All Blacks destroyed Australia 49-28 in Melbourne (that 28 was very flattering, by the way) in a mesmerising game of such bewildering running, passing, immaculate handling and implacable ferocity, it did, quite literally at times, take your breath away. It was a sport quite unlike anything we get to see up here, in the northern hemisphere. I know it always gets said, and is always wrong, but who can stop these All Blacks from taking next year’s World Cup?
Roger Alton is executive editor of the Times.
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