Inclement, that. Indeed, every soul who ventured out to club championship games yesterday should be nominated for Sports Personality of the Year, their hardiness, dedication and weatherproofness knowing no bounds.
Not that those watching all five hours of it on telly didn't get a flavour of the conditions, TG4 forgetting to bring a windscreen wiper to Mallow for Clonmel Commercials v Nemo Rangers, making it feel like raindrops were literally falling on your head. In the sitting room, like.
“Féach ar seo!”, said the TG4 man when Michael Quinlivan got that injury time winning goal for Clonmel, but it was hard to féach anything at all, the only thing visible the outline of fellas in green and yellow shirts hugging and kissing each other, which looked ominous for Nemo.
Black screen
Earlier you feared for the safety of Fairyhouse when it appeared to have gone missing, RTÉ showing a black screen for the first 15-ish minutes of their coverage, until finally a windswept
Robert Hall
popped up alongside
Ted Walsh
.
It was that kind of day, then, and while you couldn’t but admire Andy Murray’s deliciously judged lob that won the Davis Cup for Britain, ending 79 years of tennis hurt, your admiration was a little tempered by the fact it happened indoors – if he’d tried that on the grass of Mallow the ball would have ended up in Canberra. Of course, the sceptics would point out that the current status of the Davis Cup is akin to the standing of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in English football, not lofty, and that most of the game’s leading players suddenly feel a tweak in their hamstrings when their nations summon them for duty. Or fall out with their associations, prompting a principled boycott of the event. Changed times since, say, John McEnroe would have sold his granny for a Davis Cup point.
Andrew Castle somewhat overlooked all of this in his very excited commentary for the BBC, pairing, as it did, Britain, who hadn't won it since 1936, and Belgium, who never won it at all, but did reach the final as recently as 1904. He even likened it to England winning the World Cup in 1966. He did.
The Flanders Expo in Ghent hosted the final, looking a little like the venue for the Crufts dog show, so Belgium had the crowd behind them, apart from Andy’s Ma and a few of her friends. But Andy silenced the Belgianers by seeing off David Goffin, and it says something of his restraint and dignity that he didn’t head straight for a camera to bellow: “WELL DAVID LLOYD, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?”
Armed with a racquet
Lloydie recently suggested Murray wasn’t doing enough to promote the growth of British tennis, and if you don’t count him becoming the first British man since 1936 to win two Grand Slams, as well as that Olympic gold medal, prompting half the kids in Britain to arm themselves with a racquet having had proof provided that being British doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be rubbish at tennis, and then nigh on single-handedly winning the Davis Cup, when he could’ve been home watching Clonmel Commercials v Nemo Rangers, Lloydie had a point.
Also, Andy Murray posts Instagram videos of his dog, so has developed in to a perfect human being. As he demonstrated when asking his team- mates to desist from hugging the bejaysus out of him so he could console Goffin and shake hands with every member of the Belgian team. Class. And in time his fellow Scottish independence supporters will forgive him for singing God Save the Queen, the woman crooning it seemingly intent on clearing our sinuses.
Unlike another newly crowned champion, though, secular Andy didn't credit God with his success, Tyson Fury reckoning divine intervention helped him see off Wladimir Klitschko on Saturday. "Ask and ye shall receive," he told the Sky person. "I asked for a win. God gave me this win."
Tyson’s son Prince probably said ‘Amen’, while hugging his Ma. She, after all, is the person who saved him from being given the name his Da wanted to give him: Jesus. Jesus Fury.
Jesus.
