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| Sarah Jane Mee |
Having spent last years annual summer family holiday in
the Balearics scrapping for the sunbeds with tattoo clad, footie shirt wearing
Geordies and Mancunians, I decided to head for the slightly more unusual
destination of Porec in Croatia which the hosts like to call "the new
Tuscany". The holiday was great, but the major drawback was trying to
follow cricketing events, and particularly the Lord's Test. In the Spanish
Islands, Sky Sports is readily available so in the evening while pretending to
talk to the missus over a glass of the local vino, you can place yourself
strategically looking at the screen in the bar whilst almost maintaining eye
contact.
On arrival at my swanky hotel I went straight for the
remote. To my dismay the only UK channel was Sky News. This was in the height
of the KP text scandal and Sky News was regularly running the story. I typed
out the "its all about KP piece" and forwarded it to Liam, based on
these clips and what I had learned, prior to leaving the UK. Shortly after, the
cricketing theme continued when around the pool I struck up a conversation with
a guy who had been sitting close to Philip Tufnell on the flight over from
Gatwick.
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| Herr Botham |
Trying to keep my hand in, I logged on to this site and
read Dan's piece on dodgy haircuts. I particularly liked Bothams highlighted
mullet circa 1985 and the reference to Alex Haley. Well what I can tell you is
that in Croatia holiday hotels, the Botham 85' look is alive and thriving. The
hotels are stacked with Germans sporting the Liverpool FC late 70s/early 80s
look, with armies of Graham Sounesses and David Johnsons, splashing in and out
of swimming pools. Maybe this look is modelled more on Rudi Voeller and Paul
Breitner for those of you that remember them, than Beefy? However, despite being
weighed down by those shaggy perms they did more lengths than Lindy Field
during her infamous bed busting night with the aforementioned Beefy in
Barbados.
The speed shown may have sometimes been more Michael Atherton than
Phelps, but at other times the front crawl was quicker than that shown by
Stuart Lubbock at the Roydon swimming gala when confronted by Michael Barrymore
and his broom handle. The locals sunbathing in the pine trees by the beach
appeared to be sporting the new Prince Harry swim wear range.
Shortly afterwards I met a guy, who had a few years
previously come third in TV series, The Apprentice, who was a big cricket fan and was a
commentator at Kempton Park race course . He described his post Apprentice
period, as his fifteen minutes of fame during which he had the good fortune of
encountering a true cricketing legend and massive horse racing fan, Mikey
Holding. In Croatia this year they have had no rain since April and the earth
is scorched in a similar fashion to during Holdings zenith at the Oval in 1976.
My new mate told me he quipped to the famously laid back West Indian paceman
that he had heard that Joel Garner had, prior to bouncing out batsman, been a
professional jockey. Quick as a flash Mikey apparently retorted "Yeah but
the horse road on his back"!
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| Bruce Reidski |
Talking of extremely tall people, my hotel had a sports
centre attached which I heard was being used for a training camp by a women's
national volleyball team. Having a sneaky peek into the hall I was hoping for
the Australian beach volleyball team. Instead of scantily clad beauties, I was
confronted by the Russian court team, and a succession of Bruce Reid and Peter
Crouch lookalikes instead, just my luck!
As the Lord's test reached the last day and Englands tail
attempted to wag more than the other halves of the 2006 England World Cup
squad, without the assistance of KP, I started getting optimistic texts. So I
made my excuses and scuttled up to the hotel room, switched on Sky News and
waited, fingers crossed, hoping for Sarah Jane Mee to make me happy (no my right
hand wasn't involved other than on the TV remote).
Unfortunately it was not to
be, as SJ informed me of Englands demise and replacement as the worlds number
one test side. This was followed by the news that as well as having sold the
guy that scored 38 goals last season to the Old Trafford Taggart, Arsenal had
sold their top assist maker to Barcelona, abandoning the infamous self
sustaining model, for the Stan Kroenke inspired "Total Profit" model.
Silent Stan knows fuck all about cricket, but that is evidently more than he
knows about football or "soccer", as the Ian Chappell lookalike probably calls it.
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| Stan Kroenke |
So after all the problems keeping up with our great sport
on my return to the UK, I couldn't wait to bring myself up to date by logging
on to The Middle Stump. It is great for a summer holiday, but bloody difficult
to follow the cricket in Croatia.
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