Maybe it's because I'm English...

...but I'm really struggling to like Andy Murray...!

As 'Murray Mania' continues (the hype was bad enough with Henman, who never really had a shot to win it!) I'm doing my best to get enthusiastic and excited about Murray's prospects of being the first British man to win Wimbledon since 1936. But whenever I see him interviewed I always feel like I want to punch him in the face...He is the absolute antithesis of Beckham - A PR man's nightmare...

There was something about Tim Henman that was likeable; maybe it was the fact that our wish for him to win Wimbledon (or anything!) was based more on hope than expectation. He seemed a genuinely nice guy who was "alright" at tennis. We enjoyed the roller-coaster of 4 Wimbledon semi-finals (without ever progressing to the final), the agony of him somehow managing to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. But he did it with a smile on his face; and there was something terribly English about that - a little celebratory fist-pump for a point well-played was as excited as Henman got.

Murray undoubtedly has more talent than Henman; ranked number 3 in the world (Henman and Rusedski (wasn't he Canadian?) only ever made #4 I think) and having beaten Federer the last 3 or 4 times they've met, he has a real chance to win - especially with Nadal out! But is he likeable? Every interview I've seen (and maybe I've missed the good ones?) he seems to be a typical 'dour' Scotsman. No offence!

His recent 'image' adjustment has helped; he now looks less like an extra from the Gibson movie Braveheart, and more like a poster boy tennis player. But for someone who reportedly stands to make $160 million/£100 million if he does the 'unthinkable' and wins Wimbledon on Sunday, you'd think he'd smile a bit more. Maybe he will relax if he wins it!

I'm sure the 'bandwagon' has been well and truly crushed from the weight, but I was watching a crowd interview from 'Murray Mount' on ESPN, where 2 youngish lads (13/14 I'd guess) were asked what they thought of Murray? 'He's alright, I guess.. but he's Scottish ain't he!'

And maybe that's where I struggle. As an English sports fan, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish were always the enemy no matter what field or court they played on - Rugby, Football, Cricket, Tiddlywinks. I spent 3 years at university in Wales, where the Welsh would cheer on anyone who was playing against the English... even the Germans, the Argentines or the bloody Australians! Come on now...really! So perhaps I've been twisted by that anti-English bitterness, but you know it's the same with the Scots...

So although 'Tiger Tim' left us English disappointed and emotionally drained, I can't imagine they were drowning their sorrows on the streets of Glasgow when he lost, so why are we going crazy about the possibility of a Scotsman winning in London? That said, come Sunday I'm sure I'll be watching and probably cheering him on...just so we can do away with this '1936' thing!

In memory of a Thriller...and an Angel...

I know this is billed as a sports blog, but sometimes you just have to acknowledge events in the wider world...

Today was a sad day for the entertainment & music world, particularly for people of my generation; babies of the late 60', early 70's, who grew up to become 80's teenagers and hit the world running in the 90's....

Michael Jackson, the king of pop; Farrah Fawcett, the sweetest of Charlie's Angels; they both passed away today. The former, a momentous surprise; a 'where were you when...?' moment for those of us too young to have experienced that when Elvis died in the 70s; the latter an inevitable end to a long, painful and highly documented battle against the dreaded 'Big C'.

Charlie's Angels was an iconic TV series of the 70s; the first to really empower women and portray them in strong, central roles and counter the undoubted TV sexism of the era. Farrah was my favorite, and who can forget that poster... Having lost both parents to cancer, I know exactly what the family has gone through and my thoughts are with them...and I know from personal experience that she, and they are better off now...

1982 was when Michael Jackson hit my radar...aged 13 with my shiny new copy of 'Thriller' in hand...I didn't know much of him as a child superstar, this was when he and I came of age. Undoubtedly troubled (a superstar from the age of 5 is destined to be little else), he was a performance genius. I liked his music, his style and a big regret is that I never got to see him perform live. I never really believed all the accusations from a few years back; to me he was a lonely star that never really had the chance to grow up. Maybe the company of kids was his way of reclaiming that youth - misguided in this day and age, maybe...but I don't believe his intentions were sinister. Perhaps I'm wrong...I'm sure stories will appear in the coming days, weeks and months - what the truth is perhaps we'll never know...

I'm pretty sure of one thing though, he was a special talent who defined the music of a generation, who transcended cultures and generations, and as the ecstatic crowd in this 2001 performance of my favourite Jackson song shows, could transfix an audience like few others...

"The Perils of an Aging Sportsman"

If you've spent most of your life playing sport of one kind or another, but now you've hit your late 30's, or heaven forbid, you've trespassed into the 40's or later, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about here...

The mind is willing...but the rest of you can't quite keep up like it used to... This point has been reinforced to me recently, as I've just again started playing football after a 3 year gap during my international transfer. Back in England I played 'footy' almost every week for 30 years, from the age of about 6 to 36. 11 a side, 8 a side, 5 a side, 3 a side, - it didn't matter, it was great fun with a good bunch of guys of similar age and capabilities.

But now, life has changed. In my early 30's, I knew after a couple of ankle and knee injuries that my 'full size pitch - 11 a side' days were over. From the professional trials at Bristol City when I was 12/13, through school, and post university with the Westbury Wanderers it was good while it lasted. But after one crunching tackle too many, followed by knee surgery, I knew enough was enough. But I played on - Wednesday nights with the same guys on a smaller pitch - 5 a side, 6 against 7, or how ever many of us turned up, it didn't matter. Good fun for an hour, followed by a beer...And as we got older together, you didn't really notice the pace slowing or the skills wavering.

But now here I am touching 40 (sshhh), having joined a team where the oldest guy (other than me and another aged mate of mine) is probably 21; you notice how much quicker it is, how much fitter they are and how it really is a young man's game. Still good fun, but maybe a bit too intense for a guy who spent the last 13 years involved in a league called "The Casuals - A League for Old Gits". Especially as they all seem to come from the "Ronaldo of 5 years ago" school of thought...put your head down and run as fast as you can with the ball and try and beat everybody on the pitch...twice...then shoot! 'Pass and move', 'find the space' does not seem to appear in the American 'soccer' vocabulary....we'll teach them...

But this blog topic, and the Title, came to mind by way of an hilarious email sent to me by my other aged (46) teammate, who pulled/tweaked his groin muscles on Wednesday night but refused to come off as he was enjoying himself too much...I gave him some advice that involved a hot bath and the application of some analgesic cream... The results are quite 'eyeopening' and he graciously gave me permission to publish this story...names have been withheld for obvious reasons of privacy!

"I took your advice last night and had (his wife) run me a bath for when I got home. I stopped off at CVS (for Brit readers - chemists) and got me some of that Icy Hot (Deep Heat) cream. So I get in the bath and sure enough I started to feel much better. Straight afterwards I thought I’d put some cream on. I’d forgotten how hot this sort of stuff is. So I’m putting it on the top of both my thighs while conscientiously trying to avoid getting any on any ‘sensitive areas’. The problem was that because it was both inner thighs, I was using alternate hands to put the cream on and consequently alternate hands to move my gonads out the way."

"Needless to say that while I’m doing the second leg I’m inadvertently rubbing the remnants of cream from the first application on my bollocks! Oh My God I thought I was going to die! The thing is there’s a delay and then the pain just builds and builds! Well I’m in agony, and (his wife) is cracking up. To make things worse I just run over to the sink and still using my hands, which are both still covered in cream, I start trying to wash the stuff of with cold water, all the time compounding the bloody problem by rubbing more cream in! After a minute or two I realize what’s going on and jump in the shower and use the shower sponge and cold water to get some relief! I can laugh about it now but trust me it was fricking agony! Needless to say I made sure I had underwear on this morning before even thinking about putting the cream on!"

And that truly is one of the greatest perils of an aging sportsman!

And I thought football songs were bad...

Now there have been some pretty 'rough and ready' football songs over the years, but this pretty much takes the biscuit I think... The Ashes start on July 8th...and all I can say is that I'm glad I'm not in England to have to suffer through this on Top of the Pops for the next couple of months...

I do agree with the Marmite vs Vegemite argument though! And will we beat the Aussies 3-2? Probably not!

I suppose it is for 'charridy' though...

"I wouldn't sell that mob a virus"

My how the world can change in 6 months...Sir Alex Ferguson's famous quote from last year seemed to suggest that Cristiano Ronaldo would not see his dream move to Real Madrid happen any time soon. Yet here we are 6 months and $131m/£80m later...

As a Utd fan, do I think this is good news for Utd? Maybe.

Reason #1
A player widely regarded as the world's best (or at least second best to Barcelona's Lionel Messi) will always be missed and is almost impossible to replace, certainly like for like. On his day Ronaldo brought speed, power, skills and inspiration to the Utd attack; the trouble is, like a petulant schoolboy who thinks he's better than the rest of his team, it all too often became the Ronaldo show - a bit like the recent Champions League final where he was anything but a team player. We won't miss that...

Reason #2
Pardon my French, but $131m/£80m is a shit load of money! Let's also assume that one or two underperformers may also go this off-season (Nani was a sure bet to leave until this news), the fund might make it up to $160m/£100m. Assuming SAF is able to spend it on players (and it's not used to service debt) then that could buy you 3 or 4 world class players. Carlos Tevez may stay now, bang goes £25m, but who may arrive? Another striker, a combative midfielder - perhaps the money could be spent cloning Roy Keane's DNA - another winger? 23-year-old Ecuador winger Antonio Valencia, has been linked with a move to Old Trafford by British media.

Reason #3
This may bring on the regeneration of SAF's final Utd team. Scholes (turns 35 during next season), Neville (35) and Giggs (36) will become even more bit-part players next season, Van der Sar (39) has one good year left. Those 4 have nearly 2200 appearances between them. £80m or £100m will allow us to shore up the gaps those guys will leave.

Reason #4
Attitude. No one is bigger than the club - just ask David Beckham! Ronaldo was increasingly seen as a divisive influence at United, openly challenging SAF's authority. In the last weeks of the season he angrily swiped at some TV equipment while shaking his head in clear annoyance when substituted against Manchester City. When he missed a shot against Wigan, he answered Ferguson back from the pitch while shrugging his shoulders; that was the death knell, and we watched it ring...The exact same thing happened in 2003 with David Beckham.

Reason #5
Linked to #4...Desire. Who want's a player whose heart is somewhere else? Ronaldo's performance this season was a shadow of last year. Was that down to the speculation last summer? Maybe. Ronaldo is keen to join a club has just had its first trophyless season in three years while United won a third straight Premier League title, the Club World Cup, and the League Cup as well as making the final of the Champions League and the Semi-finals of the FA Cup. Strange decision? But then it does rain a lot in Manchester; that must be tough for a boy who grew up in on the paradise isle of Madeira!

Whatever happens, I think this is a great opportunity to 'go shopping'. Many thought Utd would not be the same after Roy Keane left...and to a degree we weren't because SAF didn't try to replace the irreplaceable. He restructured to share the load and fill the void left behind. That should be the strategy now - let's not try to 'replace' Ronaldo by overpaying for an illustrious winger. Let's free Rooney up to be the troublesome roaming striker he should be, rather than wasting his talent and energy in left midfield. Let's sign on Tevez as an attacking midfielder to play behind Rooney and Berbatov (unless we can persuade someone to take him off our hands for £25m). I like the idea of a winger - not Nani, I think he's had his shot and blew it - but let's not waste £50m on Frank Ribery (Bayern Munich). And let's not forget Owen Hargreaves. If he can recover from his troublesome knee issues, that will be like a new £20m signing.

Van der Sar, Evra, Ferdinand, Vidic, Rafael, Carrick, Hargreaves, Valencia, Tevez, Rooney, Berbatov (or new striker) - with Fletcher, Giggs, Scholes and a couple of new faces on the bench, that's still a team that could win stuff.

With the Champions League draw in August - what price Utd and Real Madrid meeting in the same group!?

Do I not like Orange?

I really, truthfully don't know what to say here...England losing at home (at Lord's no less) to The Netherlands in the opening game of Cricket's Twenty20 World Cup has to be the lowest point of England's (admittedly dismal) cricketing history! My, how the Australians must be worried about the upcoming Ashes battle this summer!

As the BBC described it - England crashed to one of their most ignominious cricketing defeats of all time, as the Netherlands won the ICC World Twenty20 curtain-raiser at Lord's by scoring two runs off the final ball amid scenes of scarcely believable drama!

Now getting beaten by the Dutch at football is one thing, but cricket!! One has to wonder if Graham Taylor (disastrous ex England football manager)) took temporary charge of the team...just for a laugh to see what would happen??

For the Netherlands to beat England at the home of cricket represents an astonishing achievement, and they were thoroughly deserving of their victory. But the England team should find a very deep hole, fall into it and hope someone buries them, before the Aussies do later in the Summer.

Is it just me...?

Thirty years ago Trevor Francis became the first British football player to cost a club £1 million pounds in transfer fees. He moved from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in February 1979 - I was heading for my 10th birthday and thought that was crazy! One whole Million Pounds just for a footballer - "Blimey, he must be fantastic!" I thought!

While recognised as the first million pound player, the actual transfer fee for Trevor Francis was £999,999 - £1 short of the million mark as Brian Clough, famous 'grumpy' manager of Nottingham Forest, wanted to ensure this milestone mark did not go to the player's head, although with taxes the total fee exceeded £1.1m.

1979, go on, you remember - For the first time in history a woman, Margaret Thatcher, was elected Prime minister in the UK. As technology got smaller, Sony released the Walkman - a worldwide success costing $200, which at that time was a significant amount of money.

The first Snowboard was invented in the USA. The bombing by the IRA in England continued with Lord Mountbatten and three others assassinated. The price of oil reached a new record of $24 per barrel, gas (petrol - see I'm almost bi-lingual now) was 86 cents a gallon. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released...The average cost of a new house in the US was $58,100.

Now here we are 30 years on...What must today's 10 year olds make of the proposed transfer of Brazilian midfielder Kaka from Milan to Spanish club, Real Madrid for 56 Million?! The world has changed, we have a black President not a female Prime Minister, an Ipod is less than $200 and a new Star Trek movie has just come out...well ok, maybe we haven't changed that much...but...

We have transfer fees for footballers at £56 Million, bids at £73 Million, even allegedly £100 Million from Manchester City. Football at the highest level, it seems, is recession proof. Although most fans have to check their wallets to see if they can stretch their budgets to buy a ticket each week, that does not affect boardrooom or front office decisions.

But the question for me, is Kaka really 56 times better than Trevor Francis? Now I know we need to take inflation into account, but if inflation was the only factor then a new house in the US would average over $3.25 Million (not $238,880), a barrel of oil would cost $1,344 (not $60), and a gallon of gas would cost $48 (not $2.50)! No, it is not inflation, it is business.

Players are assets, investments...how many shirts can they sell? Nobody will ever be able to top Mr Beckham for that...add to the fact that football clubs have now become the play things of the rich and powerful - Middle Eastern oil sheiks, Russian mobst...sorry entrepreneurs, American investors - and money actually isn't that important to them. £50 Million is small change...

Trevor Francis had a wapping salary of £100,000 plus bonuses in the early 80's; many a top player now earns far more than that in a week! Can football sustain this? Will the fans stay loyal, as the players become so wealthy they become more and more detached from the kids (and grown men!) that idolise them?

Is it just me, or is real football becoming more like 'fantasy football' with every inflated salary and transfer deal? Shame...