Summertime blue's

Well where did it all go? It's been two months with no postings, but I can't recall being overly busy to be that distracted, although possibly there was little going on in the World. 

So a quick check of my diary shows that SWMBO was away on holiday for a week, I worked at the Open Golf Championships for a week, I went to a 70th birthday in Huddersfield, played about 15 rounds of golf, had a routine brain scan (all clear) as I was having stress headaches and celebrated our wedding anniversary at Hawksmoor, a steak restaurant in Liverpool centre. That was just in July!!

August was more golf, several bbq's and another 70th birthday, SWMBO away at here sister's for a few days with the ankle biters and me at the Forest of Arden golf resort with 240 fellow golf club captains. It could have been messy but was actually quite reserved.

We have now entered September and all my 'grumpy old man' attributes are getting a really good airing. Why? Because the sports World has gone mad. Firstly the Spanish football president kisses one of the lady World Cup winning players. There has been uproar and it has taken up far more column inches than the war in Ukraine. Please lets put these things in perspective. Clearly clutching his groin was an action he should have avoided but everything else has just been over exposed!!

Now the English Lionesses footballers want pay parity with the men. This is a continuing theme throughout at the moment. The tennis players got their way with equal prize funding even though they only play three sets compared with the men playing five. If the products are the same then I am happy the prize fund should be so too. In football, the money is in the Premiership, and the wages and prize fund reflect that, the players in the lower divisions are paid proportionately. Lady's football is nowhere near Premiership level so should be paid accordingly. Somebody needs to take a stand and point this out.

Now the rugby World Cup has started in France, we are again seeing the positive discrimination which has forced it's way into sports commentary. Ladies do not have the lower range of vocal cords to present a fast moving sport like rugby. As the game gets exciting their range gets higher pitched and difficult to listen to. Add in the fact that all panels now need to include one lady pundit and it just shows how commentating has gone from one extreme to the other

Luckily the rugby has started off with good quality games and a fair bit of controversy, and there is always the mute button if things do get a bit out of hand vocally. Allez le blanc! 

Eddie Butler is a doG....

In 2004,  Premiership manager Mike Newell was particularly outspoken about the fact his team was forced to play a game at which one of the linesmen ( clue in the name) was actually a woman. The comment which got him into trouble contained the phrase '......tokenism for politically correct idiots.....'

Now footballers are not well known for their high IQ levels, and what Newell actually meant was not the term politically correct but positive discrimination. Had he used that he may have just got away with it.

It seems, however, that the idiots he referred to have moved over to BBC Sport.

I have just watched the highlights of the rugby match between England and Fiji, and a commentator by the name of Sara Orchard has just hysterically screeched her way through the game as if she was a soccer mom on the touchline at a little league match in Chicago. Poor Brian Moore was left to add some semblance of calm, sanity and wisdom to proceedings, skills he is well versed at after years of co-commentating with Eddie Butler. Until now Eddie must be the worst rugby commentator ever, but Sara has definitely claimed his crown.

I do not consider myself sexist, or at least,  no more so than other blokes born in the 1950's, I just have a problem with 'jobs for the girls'. I am very anti female vicars although I am not hugely religious. I just think it is a sacred profession which has worked well for 2016 years and could do so for the same length of time in the future. Lady F1 drivers have been tried but just don't work. I would never pay good money to watch a ladies rugby or football match and I only watch ladies golf to check my swing against theirs as they are closer to amateur men golfers in their shot making and distance control than the male pro's are.

Now don't get me onto the subject of equal prize money for lady tennis players at Wimbledon, or elsewhere. How can a 6-0 6-0 match be afforded the same credibility as a 7-6 6-7 6-4 4-6 21-19 men's match?

But back to the main point. Why was a lady commentator awarded the Fiji game? Who listened to her demo tapes and will somebody re-watch and listen and concur that it was a useful experiment, if only to ensure it never happens again.

In the early days of Sky Sports there was an option to turn off the commentary via the red button and only hear the crowd noise. The BBC also pioneered the option to listen to the radio commentary rather then the television. That was how I avoided Eddie Butler most of the time.  Maybe those options can be reintroduced.

You don't see many referees assistants in the Premiership these days, maybe Mike Newell had a point.

Calling a spade a spade

I notice that Big Brother has removed a contestant for using a racist word in conversation with another member of the house.

I have no reason to judge the decision to remove her, but it does raise this whole area of political correctness once again.

I am reminded of Mike Newell, the Luton football manager, indicating the use of a female linesman was , quote, "tokenism - for the politically-correct idiots, we have a problem in this country with political correctness and bringing women into the game is not the way to improve refereeing and officialdom.

In this case had he referred to the situation as positive discrimination, rather than political correctness, he may well have found more support for his tirade.

With regard to language, however, I feel we old 'uns are discriminated against, as many of the words we traditionally used , have been deemed as potentially offensive or been given alternative meanings.......nobody ever sits on a poof anymore, and 'gay day' now represents a festival for the pink pound brigade. I remember getting a serious ticking off from the RFU for referring to the Bank of England rugby team, which was largely populated with South Africans, as Kaffirs. In my day Kaffirs was the term used in the City to refer to Krugerrands, so I thought it quite apt. Apparently the word is now banned in South Africa as it is highly offensive.

It is also interesting that youngsters are regularly inventing new language which is often community or age group specific and is considered part of the natural evolution of communication. The flowery language of the 50's and 60's is now consigned to Wikipedia and other such language repositories.

Plus ca change