Sport – Page 4 – Boadicea's Chariot

Restoration of the House Of Lancaster

Pakistan deserved to win the first test and as fate would have it, the reformed Mohammad Amir scored the winner. That’s sport for you. England have made a few changes and should be stronger. Another thing to take into account is the second test will take place in God’s County: Lancashire.

The county of the Red Rose is famous for many things: Betty’s hotpot, Eccles cake, Lancashire tea, The Big Dipper. With its bold and big landscape there is definitely a case for Lancashire to Engexit and become an independent state. As a naturalised Lanky, I’d go for it. I await an Ambassador’s role in the near future.

lanky-and-dr-devil

Pakistan’s Yasir Shah, the Messi lookalike mystery spinner is ranked #1 in the world at bowling. He is only keeping the spot warm for Jimmy because “our” Jimmy is back. James Anderson is a Burnley man, that makes him one of our own. As England’s leading wicket taker “we” expect him to add a lot of Pakistani scalps in the forthcoming contest. (Pity “we’re” not playing India. That sentence would be better with Indian scalps, wouldn’t it? )

With Lancashire doing so well in the County Championship, and Independence looming, it’s only a matter of time before we receive Test playing status and play the rump of England then go for the stumps of Australia.

Return of the Amir

This Thursday England lock horns with Pakistan in the first test at Lord’s. In the tourists side will be the fast bowler, Mohammad Amir. Now aged 24, Amir was found guilty of spot-fixing on his last appearance at the home of cricket, six years ago. He was banned from cricket for five years and served three months in prison. Debate still rages on at all levels of the cricket community over whether Amir should still be allowed to play.

I take Morgan Freeman’s side on this. These are his words from The Shawshank Redemption when he faced the parole board.

There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I wanna talk to him. I wanna try to talk some sense to him — tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left. I gotta live with that.

Britannia at her glorious best

We have regrouped, dug in and manned our battle stations. A new PM, a determined House and a clear objective: Brexit.

All the Europrats can think about is sending the bill for a budget infringement! Excuse us – we’re still subsidising the Euroflops.

So gawd ‘elp ’em – when they return from their hols.

Home comforts

Where’s Ron’s mate Phil Slocombe when you need him?

You Huns! Accepting defeat with grace ain’t your bag, eh?

Lewis caught up with Nico and passed him on the final circuit but Nico didn’t like it, caused a little prang and kept on driving with a damaged car. The stewards penalised him, not Lewis.

German fans then booed Lewis on the podium.

And today it will be the yellow-clad Aussies’ turn to show decorum on Centre Court when their potty-mouthed hero meets Andy. Will Nick manage it? Cliff-hanging stuff.

New towels, please

For every match the players at Wimbledon are issued with two towels. These are the property of the All England Club. Post-match the deal is they are returned to the nearest ball boy. Not so. The players walk off court with them. Stealing in plain sight. The used towels are then given to friends, family or auction. You can never be too wealthy.

I’ve written before on the despicable practice of the players towelling off then hurling their sweat-drenched towels to ball boys between every point, passing on all their germs. I’d now like to chastise their manner when “asking” for the towel; they point at it: fetch. The slave children then serve their masters with this greasy piece of fabric.

Why don’t the players ask the child, nicely, to hand them their towel? Do they think our young are stupid? The bright young things are more multi-lingual than their ancestors were at that age. I’m sure they would know a smattering of Serbo-Croat, a slice of Swiss, a chip of Czech, and, naturally, be faultless at French.

Our ball boys are too nice but it would be good if at the end of the contest they employed their linguistic skills to volley abuse at the robbers. Stop złodziej oddać nam nasze ręczniki kurwa.

If you’re sick of my stuff…..

Write some yourself!

But it has to be said, there’s so much postable news these days, innit?

With the virtual certainty that our next PM will be a Tory lady, second only to our beloved Maggie, we can look forward to pragmatic gubmint, a phenomenon sadly lacking for many years. (Boris hums, ‘Can’t buy me Gove, yeah; everybody tells me so…’)

Meanwhile the Bremainers are still sulking, talking about second votes, about chaos, about Scotland, Ireland and Gibraltar. (Boris did say, ‘What part of Bleave don’t they understand?.)

But the ever-present Welsh are celebrating with a symbolic win over ~~Brussels~~ Belgium, adding fuel to the flames of the English team’s funeral pyre. Their victory only goes to show: England have sweet FA.

And while I’m here, I should mention that Andy’s best chance this year is if his arch opponent loses the third set today to a Yank. Come on, the special relationship.

Nothing else in today’s news, sorry. Oh yes, it’s a peaky blinder. Stylish, huh?

The old one-two

Troubles rarely come singly, especially for prima donnas like the England football team that got what they deserved yesterday.

May I point out that more than a few of the Chosen will return to their clubs to discover the world has changed since they left for France?

At Chelsea, Italy’s impassioned boss, Conte, takes charge. At Man City, the legendary Guardiola arrives and at Man United, Mourinho pitches up. If some of the Nice failures think Iceland were tough to face, they ain’t seen nuffin yet. The fact is that any quality the Prem League boasts is down to foreign players; the locals just take the benefits – for now.

And in case anybody is feeling smug about Wales, they are going to get a lesson in quality from Belgium very soon. Gareth cannot save them.

It will be an interesting few days, nay months!