YOU WAIT WEEKS to enjoy 90 minutes of competitive action, and what happens? Television isn't even allowed in to record events at the first serious football match of the season.
The scene should have been Ibrox. And the reason for the cameras'absence? To boost the numbers inside the stadium. We know now that Rangerslargely failed on that count, but to add to the general confusion, because of a ticketing problem, thousands of
fans were queuing to get in… at precisely the moment when many more were queuing
to get out because the football was so bad.
No one should have expected any different. Rangers' achievements last season are already remembered only as a pub quiz question: which team failed to score in five of its last six European ties, en route to a UEFA Cup final defeat? Callers to BBC Radio Scotland soon expressed their sense of déjà vu.
"Hughie Burns has been quick to e-mail – 'There you go. I saved myself 20 quid'," said Richard Gordon brightly, as Billy Dodds picked over a dismal display. "And Elaine Maddison is looking on the bright side. 'God, I'm looking forward to the second leg – four-five-one and we win on penalty kicks.'" Cue bitter laughter from Dodds: "Fair call."
When Chick Young finally button-holed Walter Smith, the Rangers manager offered no excuses for the performance, except the obvious one that Kaunas's defence had been too good. "So the alarm bells are ringing, is that what you're saying?" asked Chick, overcooking a question and snapping Walter out of his torpor. "No, that's what you're saying," Smith growled back. It was the most combative moment in more than two hours of radio fun.
Shame really. I've tried all week to find an antidote to the non-event of friendly football, and the feebleness of England's Test cricket performance, but there's been nothing out there. Baseball? Unintelligible. Beach volleyball? The stuff of fantasy, but not real sport.
Channel Five's American drag racing was the most disappointing. I'd expected giant-sized contraptions designed by Caractacus Potts – he of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fame – which flamed up and shot across the desert. Instead I got two farty little matchbox cars which let off a puff of smoke and rolled up a track in front of a stand for something less than 10 seconds and then stopped. Everyone cheered, before two more of these things got ready to perform the same trick, again and again, ad nauseam. This was even less fun than watching BMX racing.
I took solace in the internet, indulging my love of sports porn in the irresistible images, stats and reports you find on cricinfo.com. Cricket does nostalgia like no other game, and in the "I was there" strand, there was an account – written in the words of the players – of Mike Atherton's 185 not out, which saved a test match for England in Johannesburg in 1995. Even Allan Donald, the brilliant and fiery fast bowler, was awed: "It was the best innings I saw from a batsman batting under immense pressure. It was brave, resilient, he got hit everywhere, and he just stuck it out."
Such talk only serves to highlight the failings of the current England side, described by David 'Bumble' Lloyd as "abject" on the site's broadcast channel after their first day's batting collapse.
Good old Bumble, a man who once told me one of the great sporting anecdotes. During a 1970s Ashes tour, Lloyd took a ball from Jeff Thomson, the fiercest of Australian bowlers, full in the box, the protector which covers the batsman's genitals. Was it true, I wondered, that as he was carried from the field, he had asked the physiotherapist to give him something to take away the pain, but leave the swelling?
"No, that would be funny, but it's not true," said Lloyd. "What 'appened was I got 'it in the box, one of those pink plastic things, and the box split. My left bollock shot through the crack in the plastic, which immediately snapped shut again."
It was one man's memory, but we both winced before Bumble girded up what remained of his loins and went on. "You'll 'ave 'eard it said, 'Is there a doctor in the 'ouse.' Well, on this occasion, they asked for a welder."
The full article contains 733 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
