The close season

Well dear reader (both of you) they think it’s all over… well it is temporarily.

And that’s it, this is quite literally the last post as we’re off on our hols, imposing a close season on all this spurting goodness, gentle mockery, rabid snidery and occasional sporting merriment.

Just one question: just one short of a century’s worth of posts, how will the spurting world survive without us?

Who’ll be there to chronicle the vagaries of the summer transfer merry go round? Criticise England’s selection policy, celebrate Lewis’s triumph in Hungary or Cristiano’s latest triumph ….on the beach?

Well we’re sure it’ll get by somehow…. See you back on August 11th.

Freedom of the press

Hooorah! Just one more day of toil and then it’s au revoir dear Blighty and bonjour La belle France.

Not much on the spurting radar today, bar of course sensational breaking news that Max Mosley’s spanking orgy of Nazi shame must be downgraded to a simple standard spanking orgy of shame following his win in the High Court today.

Frankly it’s a sad day when a man can’t indulge himself in whatever perverted though strictly consensual kicks he likes in the privacy of his own dungeon (without or without the Third Reich overtones). Which Mr Mosley most definitely did not, oh no, not evenly slightly guv’nor. Chinny reckon.

Anyway there’s been a lot of soul searching and finger-wringing especially in Her Majesty’s thoroughly disinterested press over whether this judgement has curtailed the freedom of the meeja to investigate public figures. There’s a lot of deep legal and philosophical arguments and wrangling on this one, but we can distil it to the essentials thusly.

The Screws was fined 60k for breaching Max Mosley’s privacy. 60k! That’d just about pay for a good senior Editor’s lunch or around 30 odd similar lunchtime entertainments.

In return, the Screws (minus of course the slapper’s nominal photographer’s fee) probably sold at least half a million copies on that Sunday, a few more on subsequent ones and that’s not counting millions upon millions of hits on its web site, all of which has generated a significant portion of wedge for Uncle Rupe.

With those kind of figures it’s probably safe to say the freedom of the press isn’t in any kind of serious jeopardy.

Opening Shots....

We’re so close to our summer hols now we can almost smell the fromage and taste the quarts of delicate vin rogue we intend to quaff like l’eau.

However before we depart it’s comforting to realise some things will never change and that when we return to Blighty, our treasured summer spurting rituals will remain largely untroubled by the passage of time.

Of what do we speak? Of Sir Alex Fergie’s annual pre-season mind games of course, with today’s target Big Phil Scolari and his merry band of Chelsea millionaires. As we’ve said before forget Calzaghe versus Roy Jones Junior, this is really the fight that everyone wants to see.

Fergie’s gone on the offensive with a none-too-subtle leading jab saying the Chelski squad are a touch on the seasoned side and ‘I don't see outstanding progress coming from a team in their 30s.’ Marvellous an almost perfect inversion of Hansen’s famously dis-proven Law which states ‘you can’t win anything with kids'.

Hitting his stride Fergie continued, “Maybe they have reached a plateau - although perhaps that's not the right word” which roughly translates as 'That’s exactly the write word’. And he wasn’t he even threw in a little feint and misdirection with "I wouldn't write off Liverpool or Arsenal either.”

Hilarious.

Quality stuff from the big man, who quite clearly sees Chelsea as the major threat. But how will Big Phil respond? In print? Online? By buying Kaka or Robinho? Or both?

This is going to be fascinating stuff....

The Right Stuff...

It’s Monday and while the days slowly tick down to our summer hols, we were heartily cheered by Lewis Hamilton’s win at Hockenheim yesterday.

Okay it’s just over half way to go in the championship now, but the MP4-23s are starting to look seriously quick (well Lewis's one anyway)and Hamilton was absolutely serene yesterday. Even the team’s rather naive tactical blunder in not pulling him in when the safety car was deployed, just gave Lewis a chance to show what a driver he is passing Massa and Picquet in supreme style.

But if Lewis has got the right stuff, quite clearly the England cricket team haven’t. The talent is there, but the selectors are failing to give Michael Vaughan the right side to lead into battle. Against South Africa selection has been appalling: Ambrose shouldn’t bat a six and arguably shouldn’t be in the side at all. His gloveworks fine, but he’s never going to average 30+ in test. It’s got to be Prior for our money.

The selection of Mark Pattinson is all kinds of wrong. Nothing against him personally but his bowling’s been innocuous and to leapfrog him above squad players like Chris Tremlett, Simon Jones, and even Steve Harmison is so foolish to the point of ridiculousness. We can’t even pick the good Australians.

At around 80mph and edging towards 30 he’s never going to be a long term prospect. Surely they can’t have picked him so he’ll slot right out when Ryan Sidebottom’s fit again?

At 130-4 on Monday lunchtime, England are not so much staring down the barrel as having it rammed into their collective eyeball.

Who are ya?

Now we’re all for a bit of novelty as our occasional penchant for uni-cycling, fire-juggling, lady strippers attests, but England selectors, this morning you really are having the proverbial giraffe.

Darren who? Oh Pattinson…. a Grimsby born roofing artisan from Melbourne who’s played 11 first-class matches for Notts and was originally scheduled to take his progeny to Alton Towers today.

Okay he’s got a decent average and has been taking wickets by the hatful, but this has to be the most left field selection since Sharon Osbourne fronted up that one-off Girls Aloud gig when Cheryl Cole had a dodgy tum*.

Now we’ve had some unlikely names creep into the England reckoning over the years, Joey Benjamin, Martin McCague and Gavin Hamilton ub the debit ledger and even Marcus Trescothick was plucked out of obscurity before he went onto became England’s Banger and a mainstay of the side.

But Pattinson? That is truly and remarkably unusual and how will it make the queue of bowling worthies like Simon Jones, Chris Tremlett, Matthew Hoggard, and even Steve Harmison feel?

Duncan Fletcher used to get take stick for sticking by his guns, but this is a case of not so much as next cab off the rank, but as summoning the next cab from the outer orbit of Uranus.

He’ll probably take 40-7 now.

*This might have been a strange, unusual and fairly disturbing dream or we may just have made it up…

For the good of the game: A modest proposal for the EPL

Doubles and indeed trebles all round as the ECB and the counties finally agree a form for the inaugural English Premier League Twenty20 competition although why they have to wait until 2010 is anyone’s guess.

Just one question: Won’t everyone have got bored and be demanding a shorter form of the game then?

Ladies and gentlemen we give you World of Spurt’s Five5! (Copyright World of Spurt 2008)

Still timely it might not be, but at last it’s a rival and a counter balance to the morale sapping power of the IPL. So for these small mercies we should at least be grateful.

But if the ECB are serious about using Twenty20 as a shop window to publicise cricket, attract young athletes into it and naturally making it a gateway to the ultimate form of the game Test cricket and not just about making it a rampant cash-in, here’s two modest proposals that they can adopt from day one to prove they have the best interests of the game at heart:

1. Make it compulsory for each team to field a minimum number (say four) of English qualified players under the age of say 24 to blood young talent amongst the established stars and prove that cricket is a career every bit as exciting and financially rewarding as football.

2. Guarantee to sell the TV rights to a terrestrial broadcaster to maximise exposure and audiences for this most exciting and TV-friendly form of the game.

You’ve already sold cricket’s soul to the highest bidder by taking Tests off terrestrial TV following that memorable Ashes 2005 series.

Now redress the balance by committing to do some good for a change, don’t just flog it to Sky or Sentanta because they bid the most cash.

So do the right thing. The eyes of English cricket lovers everywhere are upon you.

The Two Ronnies

It’s a tale of Two Ronnies at the moment and for a change we’re spared further comment on ‘modern slave’ Cristiano and his ongoing come hither Real saga and can instead concern ourselves with the strange case of Manchester City and the Brazilian ace who never was.

Now ‘nuff respect to Man City and all that and new manager Mark ‘Sparky’ Hughes, but as we predicted way back when, it was like (and due respect to senor Fabio here too) England winning the World Cup again in our lifetime - never really likely to happen was it?

The nightspots of cold rainy Manc or the fleshpots of Milano... not too much of a tough choice for ex-golden boy Ronny either?

Of course it would have been great to see Ronny grace the Premier League, but the old Ronny, before the nightclubbing, the timber accumulation and when ‘Ronaldhino is in the gym’ actually meant he was, rather being than a metaphor for skiving training ...again.

Barca apparently aren’t entirely blameless in this either, but here’s hoping the gap-toothed former genius turns it around in Italy. At 28 he’s still relatively young and should be about to enter his playmaking prime and if he can recapture fitness, form and most importantly the desire to perform on the biggest stage, then there’s still room yet for a Ronaldhino Renaissance.

Not just for his own sake but for football’s as well.

It would be tragic indeed to see such a formidable talent prematurely pissed away. Football itself is poorer without Ronny’s unique brand of beguiling magic.