Spring has sprung

It has been a strange few week for any number of reasons. The Easter break, coupled with numerous bank holidays being accompanied by unusually good weather for the time of year has brought fresh impetus to what was becoming an insipid year. Back in January 2010 I suggested that the nation had 4 options for reviving the feel good factor needed to see us through the recession, these were 1: Hope for a Take That / Robbie Williams reunion tour, 2: Win the World Cup at any sport, 3: Discover that the UK will not be affected by climate change,  4: Marry off one of the Royals. 

Unless you have been living in a 3rd world country you may have spotted that 2 of these events have since come to fruition, the nation is still steering a shaky path towards economic oblivion and we are now reduced to 2 remaining options. Our sporting prowess would indicate that we are no nearer winning a World Cup in any event and growing talk of hose pipe bans would suggest that we have not been excused the effects of climate change.

In spite of  my wife's protestations I have studiously avoided most TV and newspaper coverage of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding, not because I have anything against the couple or the monarchy; in my estimation they seem to be a very well suited couple and I wish them both well. In all honesty I quite like the royals and the theatricality of the monarchy. What particularly irks me is the hype and the bandwagon that goes with it. The media has spoken of nothing but the royal romance since before the couple's engagement, generating millions of column inches and broadcasting hours of largely regurgitated observations, theories, rumours and speculations.

I have turned a blind eye to Mrs. Shanks' nibbling the occasional Duchy Shortbread from the vastly overpriced Kate and Wills decorated biscuit tin but have drawn a line at the Kate and William monogrammed sick bag and toilet seat.  Other than the ardent royalist and/or dubious collector, who exactly are these manufacturer's targeting their goods at? 

It grieves me in this day and age where so many colleges and universities offer degree courses in media studies that the TV stations are saturated with the same old performing 'parrots' getting their fix in the spotlight on yet another Royal Bash.  The arc lights come on, delivering yet another shot of adrenalin into the veins of the wearied professional as they launch into the same tried and trusted list of clichés and platitudes that they have been using for the past 30 years. 

The number of people in London for the wedding was reportedly 35% higher than for the Charles and Diana wedding, with close to 1 million people lining the streets along the route (200,000 of which I suspect were either commentators or pundits). Maybe I was missing something but I don't really wish to know what size shoes the 3rd footman wears, listen to appalling anecdotes from Bloggins Minor, who went to primary school with William or question whether Sophie Wessex was really wearing a pheasant on her head.

There is plenty more mileage in this Royal romance which arguably will be good for the country's balance of payments, it is just a pity that it is the very spectacle of the occasion that makes the couple of so bankable. I am sure that given the opportunity Kate and William would welcome a break from all the press attention. I certainly would.

Thanks to the glorious weather I chose to spend a fair amount of this welcome break preparing my garden for the Summer months to come. This task now requires significantly more planning than it used to. As a child I recall the weekly bonfire to eradicate the detritus cleared from the family garden. These days even a barbecue is deemed an unacceptable pollutant of the atmosphere. What is more, you now have to work out which bin you can put your grass and weeds in, where to put the twigs and branches – not forgetting that you must not overfill your bin and remember on which day of which week to put it out for collection. This being  based on an algorithm created by some pre-pubescent whizkid who has never set foot in  a real garden, preferring to water his geraniums in a virtual world created for his playstation.

Having criticised journalists and presenters alike I must confess that I did watch the BBC documentary on David Coleman, whose 85th birthday is this month. Undoubtedly a 'parrot', but a very gifted one, he would spark into life on cue and continue to talk until the final credits rolled. What made him so different from the rest was his knowledge of his subject matter and his ability to put it across in a manner that would enthuse others in the same way that he was enthralled.

From the comments of those he worked with and those who he commentated on it was very clear that he set very high standards for both himself and those he worked with. He was quite forthright with some of his opinions, which were usually right, yet I will forever have this mistaken image of him setting the bar for UK sporting achievement back 30 years. I think it is because he always came across as such an affable man or it might just be due to the timing of his arrival on the scene.

David was not public school, nor did he speak like someone whose collar was 2 sizes smaller than it needed to be. I was at school when he started commentating on athletics. Athletes who still wore baggy shorts, a  thick wooly jumper and a cravat when they ran. Similarly, I wore baggy shorts when I was forced to run at school, though this was because I had short legs and my parents naively believed that a pair of shorts for a 12 year-old would fit the same child adequately from the age of 7 up to 16, not because I wanted to emulate some sporting god from a bygone age.

Athletics was always an enigma to me. At least there seemed to be a point to cricket, football or rugby - scoring a goal, making a tackle or taking a wicket, I could understand but running as fast as you can around a track that brings you back to exactly where you started seemed a futile gesture that I failed to get my head around.

   

Masters at my school clearly came from that idyllic period that believed that all sport was a jolly good jape, the principle of which seemed to be the colder it was the fewer clothes required to participate. This I believe is why I found myself more often than not shivering in the rain and mud with temperatures close to freezing in sodden shirt and baggy shorts that acted as a wind tunnel for the force 4 winds that blasted across the school playing fields. In Summer, 2 jumpers were required to play cricket, not because it was particularly cold but because they were required to disguise the fact that I was wearing a massive belt to keep my baggy flannels in place (bought on the same principle by my parents as my baggy shorts). I fear that not a lot has changed since in the attitude towards 'games'. PE teachers generally fell into one of 2 camps - 'Sadists' or 'jolly good eggs' - The sadists spent most of their time studying the skies for the first sign of snow awaiting the opportunity to dispatch their charges on a cross country run in just their shorts and plimsoles. The sadist would invariably coat himself with wintergreen for protection before joining them in the fresh air to bark out disparaging remarks to those lagging behind who were keeping him out in the cold.  The 'good eggs' generally spent their days also studying the skies and praying for inclement weather that would render the playing fields unusable and meant they could arrange a friendly game of 'tossing the bean bag' in the gymnasium (not if you soaked the bags in water first, as we often did!).  In their gentile and less combative world everyone who takes part gets a sweetie and claps politely when the prizes are awarded. This is not the way to make Olympic champions in my book – the way to build champions is to give the bag of sweets and a 10 yard start to the winner – save the clapping till the runner wins a major championship.

Sport seems to have figured quite a bit in my efforts to avoid the endless coverage of the Royal Wedding, in particular old sporting moments. I managed to catch another good TV documentary on Bobby Charlton, who remains an icon and role model, as well as an entertaining radio interview with James Alexander Gordon, now 75 and best known for reading the football results. His voice is so distinctive and it was interesting to hear how he had brought his musical background to his rhythmic delivery of the football scores. I didn't know that he was the announcer on the Morecambe and Wise radio shows so enjoyed his story of Eric who would always refer to him by the sobriquet 'East Fife 4 – Forfar 5'.

A film dramatisation of the Munich air disaster was very watchable even if it did appear to be a slightly distorted picture, given that the focus of the program revolved around 3 main characters, Matt Busby, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Murphy. A bit too much dramatic licence and a bit of a cold shoulder to the others who were killed or injured in the plane crash.

I even managed to watch The Bert Trautmann Story on Yesterday purely by chance – a real Boys Own story if ever there was one. This I watched because he was playing for Manchester City at the same period as my father was playing, even though he never turned professional. I was not really aware of his background in the Hitler Youth although the story of his exploits during the 1956 Wembley Cup Final against Birmingham City are vividly imprinted in my mind and were often spoken of by my father. It sends a shudder up my spine every time I see the save he made that broke his neck. Hearing him relate how 1mm either way could have resulted in death or paralysis was bad enough but seeing the way that he continued to throw himself into the path of oncoming attackers during the last few minutes of that game was unbelievable. It was a further 3 days before he even got around to having his neck X-rayed.

2 other sporting legends were brought to my attention this week. Sadly, Sir Henry Cooper died at the age of 76. I became aware of his exploits thanks to my grandfather's foresight in ensuring I was woken from my slumbers to watch his famous fights against Cassius Clay. He used to live not far from my school and I never came across anyone in the area who had anything but good to say about the man. He was an immense character both in and out of the ring and it is easy to understand how he inspired so many in his sport.

My grandfather was a great arbiter of world history. It is thanks to him that I was allowed to watch live reporting of the Kennedy assassinations, Martin Luther King, the Cooper fights, all the space missions (with the exception of  Yuri Gagarin), Winston Churchill's funeral, Donald Campbell's ill-fated Bluebird attempt at the land speed record, the Aberfan Disaster. About the only major world event that I was not permitted to watch was the news of Marilyn Monroe's death, which was a bit before my time and I don't think even my grandfather could have predicted the legacy that she would leave behind.

The other legend I refer to is perhaps not a sportsman in the truest sense. I am referring to Eddie Kidd the former stuntman who was severely injured when a motorcycle jump went badly wrong in 1996. Despite being severely brain damaged and paralysed down the left side of his body he is presently in the process of walking the London marathon route in aid of the charity Children with Leukaemia. With the aid of a specially designed walking frame that sends bionic pulses to help keep his left leg going straight he manages ¾ of a mile on a good day.

In his heyday he was famed for fearlessly jumping over 14 buses and leaping the Great Wall of China. Now, having been forced to sell his treasured bikes he lives a modest life, with his wife and carer surviving on benefits in East Sussex.

  

My memories of Eddie stem mainly from my bike mad younger sister who managed to catch one of his shows in London and talked about it for weeks. The stunts that he and his American counterpart, Evel Knievel, used to perform certainly captured the imagination of a great many people of that generation.

In my own tribute to him I did once attempt to leap the garden pond on my battered Raleigh bicycle. It may have lacked the spectacle and panache of his jumps but was none the less dangerous given the wrath I was likely to face if I inadvertently misjudged it and landed in my grandfather's prized rose border.  

It is heart-wrenching to see the pictures of him now and remember the swaggering showman he was in the 1980s and 90s, yet he has clearly lost none of the guts, determination and good humour for which he was famed. It is a truly remarkable feat that he is attempting and I really do wish him well for the future.