World Wide Waffle
Professional athletes are, to generalise, not the most rapier-witted individuals in the world. So it is always a dubious affair when they are approached to produce a sporting blog- ghost-written columns and books are bad enough, but with the added assurance that far fewer people will ever read the blog in question, the quality of “insight” on offer can suffer an horrendous demise.
Witness, if you will, the unfortunate collection of scribblings from the online pen of Durham and England cricketer Liam Plunkett. It is unlucky for all concerned- Liam Plunkett, BBC Online, and the poor, defenceless reader- that the man himself was injured at the beginning of the Ashes tour, and then spent the entire tour trying to regain fitness. This, needless to say, doesn’t make for riveting reading; typical was this entry of January 19th: “A lot of you out there might be wondering what I’ve been up to since my last entry. Some of you might even be asking whether I’m still out here in Australia.” It had, in fact, been a month and twelve days since his previous entry. So, in breaking a six-week silence, surely Liam had something groundbreaking to tell us? He came up with the goods, of course. He‘s used to performing on the biggest stage. “Away from the cricket, we’ve had a bit of time with our families, and Christmas was nice.”
Liam, poor Liam, has obviously thought this “Christmas was nice” revelation infinitely newsworthy. He was, amusingly, slated on the “Comments” section of his blog by angry onlookers using his updates about the weather, his girlfriend, and rock concerts he had attended as evidence that the England team weren’t “focused” on winning the Ashes. While I hesitate to argue with such passionate fans, perhaps the online diary of Liam Plunkett, who for all intents and purposes was on an extended holiday, wasn’t the place to look for competitive bluster and fighting talk.
That cricket should provide such a flaccid, dire effort, is somewhat sad considering it is usually regarded a more cerebral sport than football. Yet football beats cricket hands down in the BBC Blogs stakes- Plymouth manager Ian Holloway, never a shrinking violet, at least uses his to get things off his chest- recently on the sensitive topic of referees. Or at least, it’s sensitive to anyone other than Holloway, who typically said it as he sees it- “The word professional means they're full-time, although it doesn't mean they're any good! But are the rules any good? No, they're absolute garbage.”
Owen Hargreaves occasionally slips into what we’d expect from a footballer, with nuggets like “The window opens twice a year - in January and again in the summer - and it is part and parcel of football”, but overall does manage to provide an interesting perspective as an English international plying his trade abroad. Bolton captain Kevin Nolan meanwhile gives a typically frank account of his life as a footballer, his BBC column providing an endearing look into the life of an engaging and down-to-earth character.
On David Beckham’s big-money transfer to the LA Galaxy, he writes, “Beckham has taken a lot of stick from people all around the world but he has just hit back at them with a huge wad of cash…with those sorts of figures I think he would be daft not to.” And, whatever we think to the Beckhams’ move to LA, it’s hard to argue when it is so clearly Nolan’s honest opinion. Of course it’s also hard to argue with Liam Plunkett’s description of Christmas as “nice”- you just get the feeling the BBC might wish they’d offered the column to one of his team-mates instead.
Witness, if you will, the unfortunate collection of scribblings from the online pen of Durham and England cricketer Liam Plunkett. It is unlucky for all concerned- Liam Plunkett, BBC Online, and the poor, defenceless reader- that the man himself was injured at the beginning of the Ashes tour, and then spent the entire tour trying to regain fitness. This, needless to say, doesn’t make for riveting reading; typical was this entry of January 19th: “A lot of you out there might be wondering what I’ve been up to since my last entry. Some of you might even be asking whether I’m still out here in Australia.” It had, in fact, been a month and twelve days since his previous entry. So, in breaking a six-week silence, surely Liam had something groundbreaking to tell us? He came up with the goods, of course. He‘s used to performing on the biggest stage. “Away from the cricket, we’ve had a bit of time with our families, and Christmas was nice.”
Liam, poor Liam, has obviously thought this “Christmas was nice” revelation infinitely newsworthy. He was, amusingly, slated on the “Comments” section of his blog by angry onlookers using his updates about the weather, his girlfriend, and rock concerts he had attended as evidence that the England team weren’t “focused” on winning the Ashes. While I hesitate to argue with such passionate fans, perhaps the online diary of Liam Plunkett, who for all intents and purposes was on an extended holiday, wasn’t the place to look for competitive bluster and fighting talk.
That cricket should provide such a flaccid, dire effort, is somewhat sad considering it is usually regarded a more cerebral sport than football. Yet football beats cricket hands down in the BBC Blogs stakes- Plymouth manager Ian Holloway, never a shrinking violet, at least uses his to get things off his chest- recently on the sensitive topic of referees. Or at least, it’s sensitive to anyone other than Holloway, who typically said it as he sees it- “The word professional means they're full-time, although it doesn't mean they're any good! But are the rules any good? No, they're absolute garbage.”
Owen Hargreaves occasionally slips into what we’d expect from a footballer, with nuggets like “The window opens twice a year - in January and again in the summer - and it is part and parcel of football”, but overall does manage to provide an interesting perspective as an English international plying his trade abroad. Bolton captain Kevin Nolan meanwhile gives a typically frank account of his life as a footballer, his BBC column providing an endearing look into the life of an engaging and down-to-earth character.
On David Beckham’s big-money transfer to the LA Galaxy, he writes, “Beckham has taken a lot of stick from people all around the world but he has just hit back at them with a huge wad of cash…with those sorts of figures I think he would be daft not to.” And, whatever we think to the Beckhams’ move to LA, it’s hard to argue when it is so clearly Nolan’s honest opinion. Of course it’s also hard to argue with Liam Plunkett’s description of Christmas as “nice”- you just get the feeling the BBC might wish they’d offered the column to one of his team-mates instead.
Labels: Sport
posted by Matt at 5:40 pm
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