Real Life Sad Ending To a Happy Story

As you've probably figured by now, this sport business has a slight tendency toward the dramatic. In fact, I've long thought of sport as soap opera for men. Improbable storylines, pantomime villains, joy, heartache and then Gary Lineker presents the omnibus so you can catch up on what you've missed.

Of course, the problem with soap operas is that sometimes people mistake them for real life, accosting Dirty Den at the petrol station or sending love letters to that Maria off Corrie. This phenomenon is also replicated in sport, especially on a weekend like the one just passed, where the potboiling plotlines whisk us off to a land of makebelieve, and perspective and reality disappear from view.

Saturday's incredible events put sport onto the front pages, which only exacerbates the confusion, placing games alongside real life so that they blend in seamlessly. Then something happens to make everyone snap out of it. Like the grey-haired figure who had just watched the team he coached fall on the wrong side of one of the biggest shocks in sporting history dies only hours later.

A guy who had just been an unfortunate stooge in a particularly outlandish sporting cock and bull story, the poor sap on the wrong end of a ripping yarn, had just, well, actually died.

Oh. Shit.

I knew little of Bob Woolmer before Saturday. Like many others who don't follow cricket closely his earlier career as a test batsman who had joined up with the Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket and later taken part in the rebel tour to South Africa was unknown to me, as was his later standing as one of the most respected and innovative coaches in the game.

He was a close personal friend of Dickie Bird, the former test umpire, however. Bird had been unearthed by Sky News to provide some good old-fashioned bluster on the news that 'Freddie' Flintoff, English cricket's erstwhile Boy's Own hero, had been stripped of the vice-captaincy of the World Cup squad. Flintoff's boozy carousing in the aftermath of England's loss to New Zealand on Friday had necessitated his being rescued from an imperilled pedalo in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The news of Woolmer's death broke while the interview was in progress. Just when the wrathful brows of the British public were gathered most fiercely in the direction of the naughty Flintoff, real life impinged, like a school bell harshly bringing play-time to an end.

But the transition from the ersatz emotion of pompous indignation to genuine human grief was uneasy. The news anchor blasted out at Bird the details of Woolmer's death in that usual Sky News red-top tone. Bird's shock was immediately obvious, his lip trembling after the anchor asked him to provide his thoughts on his close friend's death just seconds after he had heard the shocking news.

Those of us who'd cheered the Irish team home to their improbable victory the previous night even felt the chill wind of reality cool our own jovial glow. The giddy glee of such a win is for the most part derived from patriotic pride, but also from the natural element of schadenfreude in the humbling of a giant. So when the man whose team have been humbled dies at the height of our joy, the intrusion of reality can't help but dampen the jubilation.

Ireland's cricketers' win, and the thrilling failure of the rugby team were great, rip-roaring stories that remind us why we devote so much of our spare time to watching people play games. Just like the latest tidings from the Rovers Return, however, it's not for real, and thank God for that. There's enough real around already.

Will Ireland Remember the Summer of '69?

The Irish cricket team depart today for the Caribbean in advance of the World Cup, which begins officially a week on Sunday. Presuming that they survive the pre-tournament training camp more successfully than their footballing cousins,their opening group game will be in two weeks time, against Zimbabwe in Jamaica, although their first warm-up match is against South Africa on Monday next.

Group D, in which we find our heroes, is a tough one, being one of the two groups containing three test-playing nations and only one minnow, that being Ireland in this case. Pakistan follow on St.Patrick's Day, then the home team, the West Indies, should be Ireland's last opponents on 23rd March.

It is unlikely that an open-top bus reception will be necessary on their return, but the prospect of qualification from their group is not outwith the bounds of possibility. Coach Adrian Birrell believes "the key to the whole tournament is the match against Zimbabwe...If we can start well and get a win in that match it sets us up quite nicely for the tournament. We would then then have two chances to cause an upset and get us through the group stages."

If Ireland do dispatch the Zimbos, and presuming that Pakistan will be a little too strong, then they can draw on inspiration from both the distant and recent past before taking on the Windies for a place in the Super 8 (the second stage,when the tournament begins in earnest).

Let's take a trip back in time to July 1969. The Rolling Stones were topping thecharts with their Honky Tonk Woman, Teddy Kennedy was having an automobile mishap in Chappaquiddick, a 10-year old Bryan Adams claims to have been playing an old six-string till his fingers bled and, on July 20th, the world watches in awe as Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. A worthy achievement indeed, but dwarfed on the scale of human endeavour by Ireland's triumph over the West Indies in Sion Mills, Co.Tyrone 18 days earlier.

The touring Windies had come straight from a drawn match in Lords, without the injured Gary Sobers and wicket keeper Michael Hendrick, but still boasting six of the previous day's test line-up, including future captain Clive Lloyd.

Famously, the Irish bowled out their vaunted opponents for 25 runs, with Dougie Goodwin and Alex O'Riordan taking 5 for 6 and 4 for 18 respectively, on the way to a nine wicket victory.This being Ireland, the story went that the hosts had gotten their visitors tanked up on stout the night before the game (those crafty Irish!). This angle is probably apocryphal, Goodwin later remembering that the West Indies had arrived so late after their flight from London that the home team were the more likely to have been excessively oiled.

Even more hearteningly, the Windies were again humbled as recently as June 2004, when Brian Lara captained the losing side in Belfast. This time the tourists even set a challenging total, Dwayne Bravo knocking a ton to set Ireland a target of 292. However a first wicket partnership by Jason Molins and Jeremy Bray of 111, and wicketkeeper Niall O'Brien's 58 helped Ireland to a six wicket win.

Of course, both those famous triumphs came in the rather moist environment of Erin, as opposed to the dusty track that awaits in Kingston town, so Ireland remain firm underdogs this time. Still, maybe the spirit of 1969 can be re-created, either through a blistering bowling attack, or perhaps by luring the Pakistan team into celebrating St.Patrick's Day in the traditional manner.

"Ah Jaysus Inzamam, sure we've no chance against yiz, have a pint! Here put this silly hat on as well! And the ginger beard. Now punch your best mate. Go on, it's Paddy's Day...!"

Sport's Greatest Losers - Part 1

You have to admire their persistence. With each new day England's intrepid band of cricketing tourists send back ever more humiliating tales of calamitous defeat. In the spirit of ill-fated English expeditions, it is surely only a matter of time before Andrew Flintoff announces to the the dressing room: "I am just going outside, and may be some time". Though given the brevity of their stints at the crease, that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

To put it all in perspective, let's bellow 'shame' at some of sport's other most pitiful losers.

Chicago Cubs 1908 - Present
Starting with the organisation that has explored the concept of losing with such painstaking detail for nearly a century now, such that, if there were a competition for the biggest losers, they would win, except that would be a paradox, thus denying them even that honour.

The last time the Cubs won the World Series was 1908, the year in which Henry Ford produced his first Model T automobile, Robert Baden Powell began the Boy Scout movement and the women's suffrage movement was in the midst of a strategy of civil disobedience. Oh, and Australia regained the Ashes with a 308 run victory over England (England did manage to win one test however).

World Series would be a fine thing - this crowd can't even get their hands on a National League title, last winning a 'pennant' in 1945, when Frank Sinatra was getting chased by bobbysoxers and it was still ok to nuke a city.

This empire of failure appointed a new high-priest of haplessness in 2003, when, a mere two outs from getting to the World Series in the NL championship game against the Florida Marlins, fan Steve Bartman attempted to catch a foul ball instead of allowing outfielder Moises Alou take the catch to get another out. The Cubs subsequently collapsed, the Marlins won the World Series, and the world returned to its axis.

Manchester United 1968-1993
Although currently being slavishly imitated by Liverpool with their take on the Crumbling Empire/Subsequent Famine trick, the Reds of Merseyside have some way to go before matching the years in the wilderness endured by United between the glorious seasons of 1966/67 and 1967/68 in which they won the league and European Cup, and their return to the pinnacle of English football in 1993/93.

United were an object lesson in the problems of succession: Matt Busby's retirement in 1969 saw a succession of manager's fail to match the achievements of the Scot's 24 years in charge. Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell were too meek, Tommy Docherty too mad, Dave Sexton too defensive and Big Ron too tanned. Famously, it took Alex Ferguson almost seven years to drag the club to a title.

The nadir was a relegation in 1974, which Liverpool have, as yet, failed to match. Perhaps as heartbreaking was the failure to win the 1992 title, the last First Division championship they would compete for, which Leeds won after United lost 2-0 against, ahem, Liverpool. Still, they've rather made up for it since.

2005 British & Irish Lions
New Zealand could hardly have been a less hospitable place for the 2005 Lions to visit had the host country arranged a tour match against some Orcs left over from the filming of Lord of the Rings. The test results were by no means the worst ever either, the tourists having gotten smacked up four times in 1966 and 1983, rather than the mere three whippings they took in 2005.

But the way the tour was conducted, when added to the whitewash on the field, sets this tour up for particular derision. This was Clive Woodward's Heaven's Gate, the folly to end all follies. From the whole 'Power of Four' nonsense (which included a specially commissioned and immediately forgotten anthem) to the vast massed ranks of backroom staff that shuffled along in their wake, verily this was a carnival of cluelessness.

Being exactly the kind of Englishman whose superciliousness plays poorly in the Antipodes, Woodward was always up against it. But when his tactics consisted of the dusting down of a manual entitled "England 2003 - Biff, Bash and Wilko" observers were entitled to wonder whether more time had been spent on assembling the 26-strong backroom staff than in devising a remotely cogent gameplan.

If Willie John McBride had issued his famous '99' call in 2005, this lot would looked around for the ice-cream van.

Aussie Victorious is A Matter of Pride

If you've found recent media coverage of the Ashes excessive, both in that which has spilled over from the cross channel outlets, and also the fact that it gets any attention at all in this country, then you'll be delighted to have seen the English wickets tumble this morning, in that familiar way they had of doing so in the not-so-distant past.

The loss of the second test and the destruction of an English nerve that snapped under the irresistible weight of Shane Warne's genius should see English cricket's giddy garlands of the summer of 2005 folded up and put away, to be looked back on only in quiet moments of repose.

The shellshocked English cricketers will be feeling bad enough today, as that prized urn and those happy memories slip further away. The full force of Australia Victorious, however, will only worsen their demeanour.

There is, probably, no worse place to be a loser, and no worse loser to be, than an Englishman in Australia. England as a nation does not have its enemies to seek, and there would appear to be far more rancourous historical foes around than the Aussies, whose original flowering was, after all, from relatively recently planted British seed.

But it is precisely that closeness that infuses the bile into the nations' sporting conflicts. The shared language only allows the insults to be more easily understood.

Any young nation - and there are few younger than Australia, for whom the tragedy of Gallipoli as recently as 1915 is regarded as the source wellspring of their national identity - must establish itself and its independence as distinctly as possible from that of its 'mother' country, or that which had previously dominated it.

In Ireland, Eamon De Valera's controversial policy of economic self-sufficiency and total diplomatic independence from Britain was conceived to bolster and iron-cast the new nation's separate status. By remaining neutral in the Second World War and, in the process, enraging Winston Churchill through his refusal to allow the use in that conflict of the so-called 'Treaty Ports', De Valera intended to underline to the world the distinctiveness of the Irish nation.

Australia's disengagement from Britain, on the other hand, was gradual, bloodless and incomplete, the country coming into existence in 1901 as the Commonwealth of Australia, retaining to this day, of course, the Union Jack on its flag and the Queen as its Head of State.

But the Australians have a special enmity for the English, and it is clearly that of the younger sibling towards his elder, or the troubled teenager toward his overbearing parent.

None of this stops them sending their youthful population to work in English pubs, or from engaging enthusiastically with English culture - The Bill is phenomenally and mystifyingly popular in Australia, as, more understandably, are the traditional British sitcom and the meat pie (which they have perfected into a artery-solidifying wonder).

But the gory glee taken in their sporting defeats of the English speaks of their own Treaty Ports: the unbending and bitter pride they take in their excellence on the sports field, and the values they celebrate therein.

The scorn heaped on the invariably whinging Poms is intended to 'barrack' - a quintessentially Aussie term for vocal support - for what the Aussies see as positive in themselves: manly athleticism; a steely, hardbitten character; the uncompromising pursuit of victory.

Social anthropologists might speculate on how the taming of that harsh continent imbued these virtues, but however they came about, the sight of a bunch of Englishmen whimpering and folding to defeat this morning will have enthused any Aussie worth his salt.

Ian Bell's dithering dismissal - run out when seemingly caught in a funk as Paul Collingwood called to him for a single - and Ashley Giles' greasy palmed drop earlier in the test would have been seen as encapsulating everything the lack of which made Australia great.

There might not be much more attention paid to these Ashes around these parts now that the series is effectively over, but those unfortunate Englishmen will hear plenty about it for the next few weeks.

Its a matter of national pride.

Reliving the Spirit in the Ashes

Unless you're the kind of person who, when reading his chunky English broadsheet of a Sunday, skips impatiently through the cricket pages, or who flicks his remote control unthinkingly at the sight of a white jumper on Sky Sports, you will be well aware that the Ashes got under way last night, our time, in Brisbane.

Delightfully bereft of any sponsor's name, governing body acronymous prefix, or focus-branded ersatz moniker, the aged simplicity of the Ashes concept is clearly resolute in its interest and excitement for cricket followers in the two participating countries.

Of course, as far as the English are concerned, the extraordinary summer of 2005 didn't half help the cause of the ancient rivalry's profile. The explosion of enthusiasm that that series incited almost paralleled the socio-cultural thrill-spikes usually only engendered by World Cups.

The reference to football is both useful and misleading. While the crossover interest in the success of Michael Vaughan's team and the elevation to the superstar class of Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff fitted the model of the modern soccer/celeb interface, a large part of the affection the England team won - aside from the fact that they actually won, unlike the much derided teams that preceded them back to their previous success in 1986/87 - was due to the very fact that they were so clearly not like their counterparts in the Premiership.

The wonderful, twisting narrative of the 2005 Ashes, with its daily epics of heroism, sportsmanship and sheer nail-biting excitement struck a powerful chord with many and provided the nation's media with a blanket editorial line: that these fine examples of men were a welcome relief from the overpaid, preening, morally bankrupt species which usually inhabited the back pages during the rest of the year.

Flintoff was the epitome of this long-lost, Boys Own ideal, his reputation not only burnished by his swashbuckling batting and rip-snorting bowling, but by his sporting consolation of Brett Lee after the Australian's valiant innings had only just failed to prevent England winning the second test. Even Flintoff's astounding display of celebratory inebriation won plaudits, the hero clearly a likeable, amiable drunk rather than a brawling, roasting embarassment.

Of course, there was much more to the Ashes fever of 2005 than its protagonists' good natures. Cricket resides deeply in the English psyche, rarely eliciting the feverish passion of football - despite the terracing-style carry-on of the 'Barmy Army' - but representative of a broad and wholesome sort of Englishness that, suddenly, seemed to strike the zeitgeist like a Flintoff full toss on an Aussie wicket.

At a time when the concept of Englishness is the subject of endless, beard-stroking debate, when Celtic nationalism, immigration problems and post-imperial guilt seemed to leave the English nation struggling for positive representative symbols, the cricket team provided an unquestionable affirmation of the sort of national character that English people could recognise, but also feel good about.

It is the nature of such sporting festivals as that created in England by the last Ashes series that their passing should take with them much of the bunting and brio that they brought with them. The Premiership behemoth had already heaved into view by the time the famous urn had been won, and it was soon followed - and dwarfed - by the World Cup. Twelve months after Flintoff consoled Lee, Ashley Cole was spilling his heart about the ignominy of being offered a wage of £55,000 a week.

So perhaps that summer of 2005 was - like a summer holiday should be - just a glorious and restorative break from reality. Countless cricket fans and those who fondly recall the thrill of England's Ashes win will spend the next weeks in bleary-eyed observation of their attempt to retain them. It won't be the same, of course: injury and form problems and the formidable Australians will make it hard for England and the time difference will do for the party atmosphere. But this series' curious power to fascinate and resonate will, undoubtedly, remain undimmed.