TV VIEW:SKY NEWS TOLD us last Wednesday afternoon that if we wanted to see live coverage of the open-top bus parade through Bath for Britain's skeleton gold medallist we should press our red button. We did so with a certain amount of trepidation because, to make no bones about it, we feared Amy Williams would be greeted by one Bath man and a dog. The city, to our very limited knowledge at least, is not renowned for its feverish devotion to the sport of skeleton.
The initial signs were ominous, with considerably more people packed on to the top floor of the bus than there were waving from the pavements. One elderly lady exiting a butcher’s shop glared in the direction of the gold-bedecked Amy before carrying on down the path, possibly assuming that she was a bling-covered teenager acting the maggot with her mates on a tourist bus.
Mercifully, though, the crowds began to thicken, Britain’s first individual winter Olympic gold medallist since Robin Cousins (and he doesn’t really count because he was a skater) receiving the acclaim she’d earned.
And let’s be honest, while it’s the competing that matters, an auld medal never goes amiss. Such is the national mood you could imagine two million folk cramming in to Dublin airport, the overspill possibly accommodated by Hangar Six, to welcome home a medallist of any hue, even if they won it in skating. Or, say, horseshoe pitching. Any port in a cheerless storm would do.
Alas, there was no such welcome for Russia’s Winter Olympians when they returned home, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin all but telling them they were, collectively, a useless waste of space. We all, of course, have different expectations, and three gold medals certainly didn’t meet Putin’s. “I hear some say that the most important thing is to make a good showing,” he said. “I must tell you it’s not so – you go into the Games not just to sweat, but to win.” If it is, then, only the winning that counts our hearts go out to Waterford IT, Seville and Reading, all of whom we watched over the weekend contributing mightily to sporting epics, but managing to snatch defeat from the jowls of victory in the end.
Reading’s defeat was particularly painful because Shane Long, the answer to the most asked pub quiz question in the history of mankind (“Who is the only person to have played hurling and soccer at Croke Park?”) had put them 2-0 up against Aston Villa in their FA Cup quarter-final.
Before the game Reading manager Brian McDermott introduced his puppy to ITV’s Gabriel Clarke, but struggled a bit when asked the simple enough question: what’s his name? “He actually has three names: Murphy, Monty and Trevor. That dog’s going to be really confused.” Gabriel half got Brian to promise that he would (permanently) name the puppy after the Reading player who scored the winner against Villa. He hesitated at first. “If it’s Gylfi Sigurdsson that would be a long name for a dog,” he said, but a deal was a deal.
Two-nil up at half-time. “Longie? Walkies!” Not to be, three Villa goals in 12 second-half minutes sort of ended Murphy/ Monty/Trevor’s hopes of an enduring identity.
Longie, of course, could have been doing his sporting thing in Semple Stadium yesterday, not that Tipp needed his services in the end.
“Highs of a massive four degrees in Thurles,” declared Daire O’Brien as Setanta tried for a third time to bring us live coverage of the National League game between Tipp and Kilkenny, twice wiped out by arctic-like conditions.
“At last it looks like summer is nearly here,” said Seanie McGrath, cautiously stressing the “nearly”, himself and Daithí Regan having just about defrosted after their last visit to Thurles.
Tipp, in the end, chilled Kilkenny to the bone by beating them, a defeat that will probably just make Brian Cody’s lads work that bit harder. God help us all.
An entertaining contest it was too, as was the (replayed) meeting of Wayne Rooney and Fabio Capello on Setanta yesterday. What, asked young Wayne (powered by the voice of Mario Rosenstock), was Fabio’s favourite snack? “A traditional Italian recipe – corn flour bread with chopped and fried potato in the middle,” he said. To which an exhilarated Wayne replied: “That’s a chip butty, that is!” Fabio’s favourite TV programme? Cash in the Attic. “I lika the way they finda the object which they thought was completely worthless, but which, in the end, turns outa to be a little gem.” “Eh,” said Wayne, “a bit like Jimmy Bullard.”
