Saturday, February 24, 2007

Dicks and balls

As a precursor to the normal weekend sports bit, let me first of all direct those of you who are still here in the direction of some friends in need of support.

Surly Girl – who is less than happy at the moment. Get over there now and give her a big hug.

Anna – going through a bit of a life changing period. Get over there and tell her that everything will be fine.

My new friend Arabella – who has just had some bits chopped off. Go and sit by her bed and tell her how you are going to decorate the spare bedroom this year.

In a blatant attempt to pick up the readership that has dropped off of late (Mrs Trellis has been unwell), I was going to comment on my friends at Livescience who have declared in a very scientific way that size does not matter. Yes, they are examining penises this week. “A penis longer than 8 inches can ram into the cervix and cause discomfort.” They begin their next paragraph with the heading “All in your head”. That is, I believe, taking things too far. Those of us blessed with physical deformities (in my case congenital ugliness) might be more reassured if the people reporting it were not Professor Twat and his absurd assistants.

Anyway, you can all stop here. I am going to write about cricket. Not just recent cricket, you understand, but ancient cricket. Things that happened years ago. Yes, I should be over it by now, but it behoves me to remind the world of grave injustices in the forlorn hope that these mistakes will not be made again. I was prompted to consider this by my good friends at Wisden who mentioned this episode in two recent issues of their monthly journal. It concerns two well known English cricketers, David Gower and Graham Gooch.

Graham Gooch was a batsman of mediocre talent by international standards, who through hard work and application became successful. He played for England for a long time. It seemed longer. He was dull. His shots were dull, his voice is dull (think of a high pitched Trevor Brooking) and he probably wears grey every day. I cannot remember anything about his cricket that is joyful, even the fact that he holds the record of having scored more runs in a match than anyone else.

David Gower was a genius. He had grace, elegance and amazing timing of his strokes. He didn’t care much for the ordinary. But everything that he did on the cricket field drew your attention. His strokeplay was sublime. Too good in fact, because there lived the constant fear in watching his innings that something so subtle could not last. (He was a contemporary of Ian Botham, and many prefer the style of Botham. I will not argue with them, that is their choice, but for me Gower was one of those who transformed cricket from a game into a religious experience. In the good sense of religious experience, that is.)

Unfortunately, the latter stages of Gower’s career coincided with a time when the twats who run English cricket decided that we needed to be more serious about the game, and Mickey Stewart was appointed as ubersturmfuhrer. I do not want to be cruel about Mickey Stewart*, but let us just say that he probably enjoyed Graham Gooch’s company. It was decided that these chaps needed to be a bit fitter in order to compete. This did not sit well with Gower, who did not need anything other than his natural talent in order to excel. He fell foul of Stewart, and more importantly Gooch who was the natural choice as England captain under the dour, dire and dull new regime. It was not just that Gower decided it would be a bit of a jape to divebomb an England game in a light aircraft on one day off, but his general failure to become boring that eventually led to Gooch being responsible for leaving him out of the team, and consequently to end his career.

Unforgiveable. Gooch is an arse, as indeed are his friends and successors. I have named them all before. Only in the last three or four years have there been England batsmen worth watching, after a very long period of crap. Bollocks to Gooch and his mates. I hope his bails drop off.

* Actually, I do want to be cruel about Mickey Stewart. He is an arse.

12 comments:

Dave said...

I once spent a pleasant day at trent Bridge watching David Gower score an elegant century. I modelled my own batting style on him.

In the sense that a model is a small and inadequate replica of the real thing.

tom909 said...

I want to take this opportunity to record for posterity, that on this rare occasion I am in full agreement with Vicus. I'm talking about David Gower here, not the 8" cock - on that subject I have no opinion to express.
But I will never agree on Dickens and Mozart, so give up now!

Richard said...

Much as I admire Gooch's application he is, as you say, more or less responsible for many of the ills that have beset English cricket. Many forget that before his shoulder went he was also brilliant in the covers as well as being one of the most sublime strikers of a cricket ball ever. In football I would liken him to Matt Le Tissier, someone who seemed to be able to create acres of space around him as soon as he received the ball and could strike with unbelievable sweetness but was tragically overlooked, no, make that under-indulged at international level. Geniuses should be indulged, not tolerated or tamed.

Richard said...

Bugger, a whole section went missing there for some reason. I meant before Gower's shoulder went, not Gooch's obviously.

Anonymous said...

Of coarse(sic!) the biggest Dick of all is Vicepresident Cheney ;-)

surly girl said...

come on now. lads. it's only a game, after all.

is david gower the one with the curly hair? who was the one what beat his missus?

{/cricketknowledge]

Vicus Scurra said...

Surly Girl. The point is that it is not just a game. Have you never heard of Tom Graveney.

Mr. X said...

Gooch was almost as boring as Boycott, if that's possible. Good job son-of-Stewart could bat a bit, otherwise you'd have a case for calling the whole family crap.
But even watching the stubbly git was better than bloody football, any day.

Richard said...

Alec Stewart was like the insufferable kid at school whose dad was a member of staff. Plus he was from the charisma bypass set, just like Gooch. He had a decent pull but he kept much better keepers out of the side for far too long. I'm with Vicus on this 100%. This is extremely important.

Surly, that was Phil Tufnell. Who would probably have been a much better player had he not been in a stifling team set-up

Unknown said...

Hi vicus dear. I read a bit about the cricket thing and my mind went totally blank.


Not unusual for me, mind you.

Frontier Editor said...

I had the advantage over our dear, sweet Pammy of having a completely blank mind before I read the post.

I seemed to have missed a lot in recent weeks, and I stand chastised.

Romeo Morningwood said...

“A penis longer than 8 inches can ram into the cervix and cause discomfort.” Hel-lo!
That's why The Canadian Medical Association developed the Penis Reduction Procedure..Duh!

Which is of course paid for by the Federal Goovernment due to the overwhelming demand..apparently there's no end to these pricks.