Ho fucking ho.... The year in review

Apologies for the dearth of updates recently we’ve had less successful posts than a Royal Mail delivery depot, but the Christmas round of works party (drunken JD-fuelled frenzy), the resulting day-long hangover (harsh skull throb) and the sheer gritted-teeth tedium of wading through all that Christmas pre-prep bollox has left little time for more serious, trivial or indeed rewarding work.

Anyway when we started doing this old shit, way back in February (although that seems like several lifetimes ago too), part of the reason was we knew we were in for a veritable bumper year-long festival of sport: the Euros, the Olympics, Formula One, pre-Ashes fever, it promised so much ...and we’ve managed to deliver so little

The fact that we haven’t managed to scratch our proverbial arse enough to actually knock out some stuff on half of it is neither here nor there... It has indeed been an epic old year and our personal highlights - in no particular order - include:

• Hoy’s triple gold triumph


• Stress free Euros, a pleasure to watch with England not appearing


• Lewis Hamilton storming to erm fifth to win the Drivers’ championship;


• The arrival of Senor Fabio, England winning 4-1 in Croatia and quite possibly
turning a corner.

• Cricket: shit results but the return of the Fred and Stuart Broad’s emergence.


• Murray's run, then the epic evening-long Nadal v Federer final


• Rebecca Adlington’s storming swim(s)


• Jimmy Page playing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ at the Olympics handover... a small but hopefully significant portent for 2012....
  

We’ll probably be doing toss all over Christmas probably except eating like a Trojan, watching crap telly, playing video games and drinking and farting a lot.

Still you never know there might be a few updates if our spleen is sufficiently riled or our alcohol level drops dangerously low.

So, in case there’s not, ho fucking ho from all at the Spurt, ‘tis the season to be pissed after all.

We hope you will be too, see you back in Jan.

Signs and portents

We thought we might struggle today, it being the Tuesday before Christmas week and intriguing spurting stories rarer than a tax collector’s smile.

Instead, we’re sounding the official world of spurt death knell and (slightly) lamenting the passing of Paul Ince, the unfortunate now ex-manager of Blackburn, who’s been sacked this morning following a recent run of poor results. Three wins in seventeen with Mark Hughes’ squad is hardly impressive, but it seems a touch premature to change horses half way through a race in such an arbitrary fashion.

Blackburn got all the plaudits for appointing a young English manager full of promise at the beginning of the season, so they deserve some stick for sacking Ince when it’s barely half way through. And Graeme Souness hot favourite to replace him? That is not so much rubbing salt into a wound as tipping in an extra bucket load. One word: lamentable.

Elsewhere a strange plague of kidney stones seems to be affecting Premier League managers from Phil Scolari to Rafael Benitez who are both currently feeling like they’re pissing razors. What does it mean? We’re not entirely sure, but we’re sure there’s a juicy conspiracy theory to be manufactured there somewhere.

Finally, we have further proof of the genius of Senor Fabio, who is currently in dispute with Wembley groundsman Steve Welch over the length of the sod. Capello wants a grassial bladeage measurement of 17mm while Welch insists 19mm is the correct measure.

A word of advice Steve, let Senor Fab have his way or a man in a dark coat will be paying you a visit fairly shortly.

Yet it’s just one more example of Senor Fab’s obsessive attention to detail which has seen the national side reborn under his tutelage this year. To paraphrase Harold Macmillan, “It’s the details dear boy, the details.”

Riposte

Well lift up our skirts, tickle our biff and call us Mystic Susan. Yesterday - in a rare outbreak of Sunday posting - we actually picked in reverse order ie. Adlington, Hamilton and Hoy, the exact finishing order of BBC Spurts Personality of the Year.

Naturally we didn’t have the foresight to put any money on it, oh no, that would be far too rewarding an outcome for the way this Christmas is shaping up.

However solace has come in the form of the return of Test cricket to our DAB radio and after all the drama, trauma and debate surrounding whether England should go back (something we again predicted – have we got a direct line to the spurting future or what?), it has been simply marvellous to wake up in this bleak English midwinter and be greeted by Test cricket's gentle cadences, immense subtleties and moments of tension and excitement.

And for a game which nearly never happened, it has been quite scintillating cricket and has almost had everything ... Straussy’s two centuries, Collingwood’s one, Swann’s double strike and a daunting total for India to chase on the final day. Sehwag’s blitz, Yuvraj’s defiance and then a match-winning century with the return of the Little Master.

The script has been perfect and we don’t even feel too disappointed by England’s loss, hell, we’re even a little exhilarated by India’s epic chase.

A return to proper Test match cricket has produced not only a magnificent game but the perfect cricketing riposte to the horrors of Mumbai.

SPOTY

Sunday* sees us in reflective mood and enjoying a second consecutive win by our beloved Hornets which has propelled them alarmingly up the table, inducing a vertigo-like but pleasant sense of smugness as peer down on the unfortunates below. Perhaps it’s not too late to rescue something from this season after all?

But today’s main event is undoubtedly the Beeb’s Spurts Personality of the Year which has decamped to the grim north of Liverpool and in which punters (ie. you and I) are supposed to participate by voting for the erm best spurting personality of the year.

Bit of a shit name it has to be said, ‘personality’ what does that mean exactly? You can’t help feeling Britain’s Favourite Sportsman would be more accurate.

Still there’s a bumper crop to choose from this year and for our money it’s down to Lewis, Chris Hoy or Rebecca Adlington. Each is a worthy contender: a quite super double ‘Medal’ from Adlington in the pool, especially since we’d won bugger all for ages and of course our admiration for Lewis is well known. Has there ever been a more exciting climax to an Formula One season?

But it’s Hoy who has to edge it: three Golds is a stunning achievement and cheering him on in the keirin was a highlight of our spurting year. Wonder if the greater British spurting public will agree?


*No funny pictures today, it’s the day of rest and we can’t be arsed….

Shane Warne: The Musical

A slight break in our December post-a-thon yesterday as we suffered a distinct bout of the creeping lurgy but we return today undeterred by the vile germs still infecting our corporeal self to scribble once more.

Talking of corporeal selves and heading straight to our inbox via specialty trained carrier-wombat to be immediately filed under ‘we shit you not’ comes news of Shane Warne: The Musical, a re-imagining of the Aussie spinner’s brilliant on-field and occasionally torrid off-field antics, featuring singing, dancing and well all the rest of that musical stuff.

Now while Mrs Spurt loves the musical theatre, we are normally more ambivalent and usually view such happenings through tightly clenched teeth, but even we are tempted by the fat boy’s theatrical debut.

Believed to feature such well loved musical numbers as the Sex Pest’s Texting Song, Diuretics Are A Boy’s Best Friend and Just Don’t Tell The Sheila Indoors, SW: The musical will chart the rise, fall and rise again of Australia’s favourite filler of column inches.

From obscure beer-swilling, pizza-noshing, fag smoking blond Aussie beach bum to erm very rich and rather famous beer-swilling, pizza noshing, fag smoking blond Aussie beach bum - oh and quite possibly the greatest spinner who ever lived.

Kidding aside, the Warner has long been one of our top ever players and as the Oval chorused in 2005 ‘ We only wish he were English’.

A two, three, four... “Diuretics Are A Boy’s Best Friend...”

White Lines

A day trip down to the mystical west country gave us little time to post yesterday, but we've sprinted back into a raft of sports-related goodness today.

First playing a little catch up, we feel compelled to comment on Honda’s withdrawal from Formula One late last week: now if there’s one thing that’s finally convinced us that the credit crunch is real and not a figment of some merchant banker’s imagination, this has got to be it.

Ironically, for a sport in which conspicuous consumption, excess and luxury have become not so much bywords as essential planning components, Honda have left because the sport’s simply become too expensive after having spunked some $200m on the team last year.

What about the rest? Are teams that don’t have a disgusting energy drink backing them up really vulnerable? Is this the first sign Bernie’s circus is finally coming apart at the seams?

Could we see McLaren v Ferrari in a real two horse race next year ie. with no one else taking part?

More importantly what’s poor Jenson going to do for a drive? We hear there’s a possible vacancy on our local milk float....

In breaking news: former England all-rounder (although we use that term loosely) Chris Lewis has been nabbed apparently taking an absolute shedload of Charlie through customs. As our fellow spurter Matt remarked, he always had trouble with his lines, but £200k’s worth? It’s the closest Lewis has ever got to a ton...

Mad Dog goes walkies

Alas, don your shrouds of mourning black and shed a remorseful tear today for Roy ‘mad dog’ Keane has departed this managerial coil.

Yup, while we were off piste with some work related nonsense yesterday, the now ex-Sunderland boss handed in his cards by text message and is off to walk Triggs in pastures un-footy related.

It’s not like we haven’t known it’s coming: The Jim Morrison-esque beard was certainly a sign things were going awry and never one to hold back, Keane had given some pretty strong hints over the weekend that he was living on borrowed time.

Still, in a career that’s been full of walk-outs (Ireland), bust-ups (Man Utd) and hefty challenges (the pitch), you have to admire Keane as an uncompromising, forthright individual who was determined to do everything, including his departure, on his own terms and feck the consequences.

His weekly pronouncements on the game and the people and business surrounding it were riveting if controversial reads and the footballing world is definitely a greyer, sadder and certainly less interesting place for his departure.

Few of us get to choose the manner of our leaving, but Keane has always managed to do it in his own inimitable way, and we leave you with just one of his memorable gifts to the English language “stick it up your bollox".

Whale Stopped Play

Like putting a mercy bullet through the skull of a long-treasured though now doubly incontinent family pet, it almost breaks our heart to do it, but even we have to admit (through gritted teeth) that Cristiano Ronaldo fully deserves the Ballon D’Or as he was named European footballer of the year yesterday.

Ronnie chose to celebrate with an unaccustomed slice of humble pie, saying it was the greatest day of his life (what even more than that threesome with those disco sluts?), and the Ronster concluded ‘Those who know me, who live with me, know that this is finally a dream come true for me. ...Winning this trophy .... I dreamed about it as a kid.'

Fair enough, the Ronster deserves his plaudits for last season, less so though Jorge Mendes his agent, who’s apparently seized the day to inform Inter that Ronnie might be up for playing for them under the Special One, Jose Mourninho. Undoubtedly it’s a none-to-subtle ploy, to raise the Ronster’s weekly wage from the paucity of a credit crunching 120k a week to a more recession-busting 150k.

We actually went to Milan once, for an F1 track day and we have to say the city, never mind the changing room didn’t seem big enough to accommodate both of those ginormous, surging egos.

Elsewhere to the hitherto unexplored world of sailing a bit of a departure for your spurt but what the fuck we'll go anywhere in search of a good gag (not that we often find one).

Now to the business and we’ve heard some sporting excuses in our time but few to possibly rival ‘whale stopped play.’

Okay we exaggerate a little for effect but Britain’s Jonny Malbon has just such an excuse in the Vendee Globe after his 60ft Artemis smacked one such unfortunate cetacean as it gambolled innocently through the ocean spume.
“I could clearly see the animal astern in a lot of trouble,’ admitted Malbon.

Not half as much trouble as if Greenpeace get to hear about it Jonny. They've got angry little boats and everything.

Still, probably worth it for 'Whale stopped play'. That is to one to put down for a fireside chat with the granddkids.

The mask slips...

We’ve been waiting for this one all season: nope not Cristiano Ronaldo winning the Ballon d’or (more on that tomorrow), but for the mask to finally slip and for Big Phil Scolari to reveal his true colours.

Big Phil, like Vesuvius has been strangely dormant all season, winning friends and influencing people with his halting ‘please love my Chelsea’ English and an unprecedented charm offensive which has seen him fail to rise to Sir Alex’s bait, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, make Chelsea a watchable enough side.

Could this really be the same Big Phil who once punched a Serbian sub and is said to have a temper as volatile as wearing Nitro Glycerene underpants while watching Penelope Cruz strip?

Has it all just been a cunning ploy to lull us into a false sense of security while Big Phil secretly smirks and covertly plots behind his bound human skin copy of The Art of War?

The answer is yes! For just like those poor Pompeians suspecting that distant rumbling signalled something ominous, the kraken has finally awoken and Big Phil has asked, nay demanded, an apology from ref Mike Dean after Chelsea succumbed 2-1 to Arsenal over the weekend.

Splendid, now the gloves off, Big Phil should go for the jugular. Despite the Scousers currently sitting top of the table, this season like the OK Corral, is going to boil down to just two teams of elite gun slingers, Man Utd and Chelsea.

Time for the real Big Phil Scolari to please stand up!

Family Fortunes

Watching events unfold in Mumbai through the fish eye of the news reels last week filled us with sufficient horror to momentarily forget our usual sense of spurting joy.

We hesitate to use the drab old saw about giving a real sense of perspective, but those pictures from India delivered it like a Curtly Ambrose bouncer to the temple.

Naturally enough England’s last two one-dayers were cancelled and the side scampered home, to contemplate revised itineraries and debate safety reports and when - indeed, if - they should go back.

Well they should.

Yup easy for us to say, with no WAGs or kids tugging at the heartstrings. But here’s why we think England must return to play the Test series.

The players’ safety is almost guaranteed now; these attacks succeeded mainly because of their surprise nature, that won’t happen again. England’s players will be safe.

There’s certainly an argument too about not letting the terrorists win and making sure their tactics don’t disrupt the normal rhythms of life.

Yet the most compelling reason of all why England should go back is to simply show solidarity and sympathy with the Indian team and its amazing supporters, even if means we end up being beaten hollow (which seems likely).

England and India have had their differences as the power struggle in modern cricket plays out, but events like this remind us that ultimately we’re all part of the same cricketing family. In times like these, the family should look after its own.