August 17th, 2007

When do our politicians ever talk such sense as he did in damning footballers who are in thrall to their WAGs? Politicians continue to state the obvious about such things as cutting bureaucracy, which they have been promising to do for years, while Keane hits nails squarely on the head.

No insult can be too great for footballers who are too stupid to realise there is a far better quality of life in the North-East than in London. And there can be no greater indictment of their lifestyle, or of the obscene wages which encourage it, than the fact that they put shopping first.

It is to the City of Sunderland's credit that you can't buy a £500 pair of Jimmy Choo shoes there. It has far better things to offer like the bracing air on Roker beach, the Winter Gardens complex and people with a genuine passion for sport.

Keane's passion as a player was all too obvious, often driving him beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour. He now gives the impression that he knows exactly where to draw the line, and of all those managers who played under Brian Clough he might prove to be the best of the lot.

IN the days before they became Wives and Girlfriends, WAGs were people who made witty comments from the terraces. I was once at West Hartlepool when former England fly half Alan Old was penalised for off-side. Someone shouted: "It wasn't you that was off-side, it was your ears?"

At Scarborough recently Yorkshire's Jason Gillespie raised his bat in triumph after getting off the mark and a wag shouted: "You've got more runs than wickets."

Even players can be wags. In Durham's first season of first-class cricket the rather unathletic David Graveney had a long chase to the boundary and, fearing the batsmen might run five, Ian Botham shouted: "For god's sake, Grav, kick it over."

PERHAPS they should have held the Fastnet yachting race on Worcester cricket ground, where at least it would have been calm. At 6pm on Tuesday the Royal Ocean Racing Club recorded its 161st retirement from the fleet of 271 which left Cowes on Sunday.

In the most serious incident it was reported that "a crew member was washed down his boat's foredeck by a wave. His leg was jammed by the spinnaker pole and it broke in two places." This, of course, suggests it was the pole which was broken, but the report went on to add that the crew member was transferred to a Plymouth hospital.

The 608-mile race was won in 44 hours 18 minutes, lopping 8hr 50min off the previous monohull record, which doubtless has a lot to do with technology as the strong winds were favourable only on the way back.

Meanwhile, back in Worcestershire, the cricketers decamped to Kidderminster and it rained again. After all the trouble at the county's New Road headquarters there will no doubt be calls from some soulless pragmatists to abandon one of the loveliest grounds in the country and relocate to somewhere high in the Malvern Hills.

LOSING the Test series 1-0 was no disgrace against a strong India side, especially as it could have been the other way round with better luck from the weather.

Even though they were not as prolific as might have been expected, there have been few finer middle orders than Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman, and any team who can ignore Harbhajan Singh cannot be under-estimated. That it was only a three-match series was ridiculous, especially after playing four Tests against the inferior West Indies.

England now have the problem of how to re-introduce Andrew Flintoff, whose absence unbalances the side because he's the only genuine all-rounder. Although Paul Collingwood picked up five wickets in the series, with some notable assistance from the umpires, it's as the fourth seamer that Flintoff is really missed.

Based on the averages, Andrew Strauss will have to make way, with Michael Vaughan moving up to open. It's a shame for Strauss after such a good start to his Test career, but selectors can only persevere for so long before sending someone back to county cricket to rediscover the art of making big scores.