It had been twenty summers since I had last experienced a late June and early July in England. They stressed that it had been hot the week before. I enjoyed the drizzle and the moderate temperatures. They were a surprisingly welcome change to Mallorca.
That last summer was 1997. The spring had heralded a new beginning. England and Britain had an optimism. The glorious weather of 1 May had taken the people to the polls. On 2 May, equally glorious, the people knew that Tony Blair was prime minister. There was joy in the land. Oh how it was to evaporate. The about turn on freedom of information, an early victim of Blairism, was an indication that a pup may have been sold to the public.
Blair, the consummate actor, was to overplay his hand during the service, but he had previously captured the mood. Late in that summer, I had put on Five Live as I habitually did in the morning. Peter Allen was presenting, when Peter Allen wouldn't normally have been. It soon became apparent why. Blair did at least appreciate what Diana meant to the people.
That was twenty years ago. In fact, the last time I was in England (in winter) was seven years ago. It was the last time I had actually left Mallorca. I realised this because of the expiry date on my European health card: the acquisition of a replacement was to prove to be less straightforward than I had remembered the process having been. I now have the replacement, but I travelled without it.
At the time I left England, there was a growing disappointment with Blair. The policies of David Blunkett had been making me uneasy as well. There were mutterings of police state. In my part of west London, there were the signs of some form of breakdown. This was heavily multicultural London. I knew Caribbeans, Asians, Irish, Poles, Lithuanians. There was occasional tension but generally there was harmony. Coexistence had been good. But by 1998, I had begun to wonder.
It was saddening. The Poles, for instance, were long embedded in local society. They had been since the Second World War. When Diana's body was brought to England, it was to RAF Northolt, the one-time base for Polish airmen, with the Polish War Memorial close by. It was a time, in the late 1990s, that predated the outright hysteria of the right in targeting other cultures. Yet one could feel the seeds of the discontent. I was to later discover, while in Germany three years later, how these seeds were being organised. Farage was just one name in a crafted strategic approach that was quite different to the blatant and simplistic thuggery of the National Front or BNP.
I returned, albeit briefly, to the green fields and woods of the northern Home Counties. This is an area where rock musicians live in discreet tranquility, unmolested by neighbours or prying eyes. Everyone seems to drive an Audi, including the twentysomethings. Apparently it's all due to highly favourable leasing arrangements. It is an area largely unaffected by the sickness of England.
Before going, there had been a radio discussion. A German journalist, resident in England for years who works for a German paper, had used the word sickness. She had suggested that there aren't quite the same extreme societal divisions in Germany as there are in England. It was Grenfell to which she was referring and not to terrorism, of which Germany has had its own sickening fill.
Theresa May isn't Blair. She failed to capture the public mood. Grenfell was and is symptomatic of social failure, hastened - it has to be admitted - by the over ambitions of the European project. This ambitiousness - so much expansion, so rapidly - was the root cause of Brexit. Immigration was just one element, but one that lay at the heart of the far-right's strategy that had initially been developed in the late 1990s: a time when it was not paid sufficient attention in exposing. The egghead fascists, Holocaust deniers and others of the late '90s were the progenitors of Steve Bannon: all they lacked then was the technology.
It was, in a way, reassuring to, for instance, be served at the easyJet check-in at Luton Airport by a lady wearing a hijab. What has happened in recent years is a denial of the one-time harmony of west London and of other parts of England. This denial is understandable, but to fully understand it, one has to make reference to the process initiated in the late '90s. The far-right was in it for the long-term.
There was an almost reluctance to talk about Brexit. There were those who had voted to leave but who now questioned why they had done so. The frightening wealth of the northern Home Counties notwithstanding, there was nevertheless an underlying sense of uncertainties. Brexit is only cause. But then, the thinking would be very different elsewhere, including North Kensington. Division. It has been twenty summers in the making.
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
The Greatest League In The World
So when it really mattered, Spain dispensed with the fannying around. Perhaps it was incisiveness brought about by the mumblings of criticism, or by the recent memory of an Italian side that had matched up during the group stage, or by the fact that until the final Spain had simply been prepared to go through the motions, aware of their superiority and content to keep the best for the last. Whatever the reason, in this Olympic year Spain played with the gods. The Italians were mortals and other teams were condemned to a life in the underworld.
Paco and Manu didn't disrupt broadcast communications. Their manic shouting was quietened by that to which they were bearing witness. "¡Somos campeones!" You could forgive them this combination of their one eyes in forming a commentating "we". They were, they are champions; Spain, that is. There was no singing and not even a burst of the greatest musical horror known to sports events the world over, Queen's "We Are The Champions".
What will it change, though? Very little where the boys with the Three Lions are concerned probably. The very insistence on the continuing invoking of Skinner and Baddiel, now formally translated it would appear to the national team, makes ever more apparent the limitations of a lionhearted spirit, inadequate when confronted with the feline lusciousness of the stroking of a football. The lionhearts dance a bump and grind of heavy boots hoofing on the turf and hoofing the ball, while the Spanish are fleet of foot, a flamenco meets salsa, a movement of joyous inhibition. Finally, and in the final at any rate.
In a few weeks The Greatest League In The World will start up again. Back will come the misplaced pass, the inability to control, the stuttering motion. The replica shirts will fill with Bar Brit beer, and from their mouths will come the encouragements to "go on, my son" and to "get it up there" and the admonishments to "stop fannying around". A Spanish team can fanny around, content in the knowledge of superior ability. A Premier League team can fanny around, only if it's called Arsenal.
For the English or British observer, be he or she tourist or resident and sometimes unacquainted with footballing nuance, Spain's success and the resultant celebration were the stuff of the patronising or the plasticity of temporarily having gone native. The regular English football fan, however, and this fan in a replica shirt on tour takes on more brutish an Englishness than at home, will still extol the virtues of, say, a Stevie G. Like Garth Crooks has. The team of the competition, in Garthland, includes Stevie G, yet Gerrard is no creative genius. He should be a component of a midfield rather than its focal point, a David Platt to Gazza.
Rare exceptions apart, e.g. Glenn Hoddle's youthful Owen-Beckham team, England have failed to produce sides that can stand comparison with European sophistication since the days of New Order and Pavarotti. But initially in 1990, it wasn't so. I was in a bar in southern France for the England-Ireland match. The half-time analysis said it all. In one word. "Primitif." It was primitive, dire and embarrassing. But then what happened? The players took the initiative. So much for English players only being capable of 4-4-2. They changed to a sweeper system, and Mark Wright became one of the players of the competition.
That was a team of players blessed with an openness, one that had taken them abroad or would do so. Lineker, Waddle, Platt. Gazza probably never learned much while at Lazio, but they were all of an era before the money, selfishness and "excitement" of The Greatest League In The World put an end to players broadening their horizons (Owen and Beckham being exceptions) and put an end to England ever being capable of being more than eternal quarter-finalists.
Hang on, though, will say the replica shirts of Bar Brits. There's Jack Wilshere. To the Three Lions' rescue will come a new fake Messiah, like the Second Coming of the one-time young Joe Cole. Alas, poor Wilshere.
Past apostles of The Greatest League In The World have goggled at Bar Brit's Sky while England have suffered their ritual humiliations. But had the channel changed during one previous championship, they would have seen a game from a different tournament. It was played in Cala Millor. Between Spain and Germany. The ball never went above head height because had it, it would have been penalised. The movement, the passing and the control were all exemplary. The pitch was small and so were the players. They were 12 years old.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Paco and Manu didn't disrupt broadcast communications. Their manic shouting was quietened by that to which they were bearing witness. "¡Somos campeones!" You could forgive them this combination of their one eyes in forming a commentating "we". They were, they are champions; Spain, that is. There was no singing and not even a burst of the greatest musical horror known to sports events the world over, Queen's "We Are The Champions".
What will it change, though? Very little where the boys with the Three Lions are concerned probably. The very insistence on the continuing invoking of Skinner and Baddiel, now formally translated it would appear to the national team, makes ever more apparent the limitations of a lionhearted spirit, inadequate when confronted with the feline lusciousness of the stroking of a football. The lionhearts dance a bump and grind of heavy boots hoofing on the turf and hoofing the ball, while the Spanish are fleet of foot, a flamenco meets salsa, a movement of joyous inhibition. Finally, and in the final at any rate.
In a few weeks The Greatest League In The World will start up again. Back will come the misplaced pass, the inability to control, the stuttering motion. The replica shirts will fill with Bar Brit beer, and from their mouths will come the encouragements to "go on, my son" and to "get it up there" and the admonishments to "stop fannying around". A Spanish team can fanny around, content in the knowledge of superior ability. A Premier League team can fanny around, only if it's called Arsenal.
For the English or British observer, be he or she tourist or resident and sometimes unacquainted with footballing nuance, Spain's success and the resultant celebration were the stuff of the patronising or the plasticity of temporarily having gone native. The regular English football fan, however, and this fan in a replica shirt on tour takes on more brutish an Englishness than at home, will still extol the virtues of, say, a Stevie G. Like Garth Crooks has. The team of the competition, in Garthland, includes Stevie G, yet Gerrard is no creative genius. He should be a component of a midfield rather than its focal point, a David Platt to Gazza.
Rare exceptions apart, e.g. Glenn Hoddle's youthful Owen-Beckham team, England have failed to produce sides that can stand comparison with European sophistication since the days of New Order and Pavarotti. But initially in 1990, it wasn't so. I was in a bar in southern France for the England-Ireland match. The half-time analysis said it all. In one word. "Primitif." It was primitive, dire and embarrassing. But then what happened? The players took the initiative. So much for English players only being capable of 4-4-2. They changed to a sweeper system, and Mark Wright became one of the players of the competition.
That was a team of players blessed with an openness, one that had taken them abroad or would do so. Lineker, Waddle, Platt. Gazza probably never learned much while at Lazio, but they were all of an era before the money, selfishness and "excitement" of The Greatest League In The World put an end to players broadening their horizons (Owen and Beckham being exceptions) and put an end to England ever being capable of being more than eternal quarter-finalists.
Hang on, though, will say the replica shirts of Bar Brits. There's Jack Wilshere. To the Three Lions' rescue will come a new fake Messiah, like the Second Coming of the one-time young Joe Cole. Alas, poor Wilshere.
Past apostles of The Greatest League In The World have goggled at Bar Brit's Sky while England have suffered their ritual humiliations. But had the channel changed during one previous championship, they would have seen a game from a different tournament. It was played in Cala Millor. Between Spain and Germany. The ball never went above head height because had it, it would have been penalised. The movement, the passing and the control were all exemplary. The pitch was small and so were the players. They were 12 years old.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Death Of A Sporting Hero
A rare thing for this blog, but for once something that has nothing to do with Spain or Mallorca.
Basil D'Oliveira has died.
Why, among other deaths, should D'Oliveira's passing demand that I indulge in a spot of obituary writing? He wasn't, after all, that great a cricketer. He was a good one but no more than that. The reason lies in his story and in the way it affected me.
A South African Cape coloured, D'Oliveira was denied the opportunity under South Africa's apartheid system to play cricket at the highest levels. He came to England, took British citizenship and qualified for the test team. His inclusion in the England side set off two momentums - one was the later selection of other South Africans but without the same moral justification; the second was the eventual abandonment of apartheid.
As a nine-year-old, I didn't appreciate what apartheid meant, but it was as a nine-year-old that I first saw D'Oliveira play. It was the Hastings festival match against the touring Australians, and he was in a team - A.E.R. Gilligan's XI - with another South African (Eddie Barlow, who was to become a fierce critic of apartheid) as well as a Pakistani, Mushtaq Mohammad.
What stood out from this match was the fact that, in the days when six-hitting was a rarity, D'Oliveira hit two, both out of the ground. For a nine-year-old, he was an exciting and unusual player; only Gary Sobers or Colin Milburn hit sixes.
It was my great uncle, who took me to the match, who explained the situation with D'Oliveira. I'm not sure he particularly approved of "Dolly" possibly playing for England, but for me it was hard to get my head around why he couldn't play for South Africa. But when he first appeared for England, two years later, I was ecstatic. I had, in my own small way, discovered D'Oliveira at the Hastings match; he was "my" player.
It was a further two years on when the full implications of D'Oliveira's England test place were to surface. He hadn't had a particularly good season, but he was chosen for the final test of the summer when Roger Prideaux was declared unfit. I was at that Oval match, one famous for its storm and Derek Underwood bowling England to victory against Australia on a badly rain-affected wicket.
D'Oliveira scored a hundred. 158 to be precise. There seemed to me no reason why he wouldn't now be selected for the winter tour. To South Africa.
I recall my shock when listening eagerly to the radio as the tour squad was announced. D'Oliveira wasn't in it. Tom Cartwright, a better bowler but not in D'Oliveira's league as a batsman, was chosen ahead of him. There could only have been one explanation, as far as I was concerned: politics.
What happened next was either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view. Cartwright developed an injury, couldn't tour and so D'Oliveira replaced him. It was then that all hell broke out. The South African government claimed it was a political selection, which was a bit rich, the tour was called off, South Africa's own tour of England in 1970 was cancelled, and eventually sporting sanctions were imposed which did have a profound impact on finally ending apartheid.
What wasn't known, but now is, was the part that the English cricketing establishment had played in seeking to keep D'Oliveira out of the squad. The journalist and commentator E.W. Swanton was to the fore in doing so, as was Colin Cowdrey, the England captain at the time. On purely cricketing grounds, Cowdrey might have had a reasonable argument, while it also came to be known that Dolly did like a drink. But the politics had initially overriden both D'Oliveira's credentials as a player and any question as to his fitness.
A further two years on, I sat my English O Level. The exam included the option to write an essay on a sporting hero. Afterwards, I asked a friend, who I knew would have taken the sporting option, who his subject had been: Tommie Smith, the American sprinter who had given the black-gloved fist salute at the 1968 Olympics. I had written about D'Oliveira.
From different sports, we had both come to write about similar things. Through sport, in addition to music of the time as well as the not infrequent news of race issues in America, we had been exposed to the injustice and absurdity of racism. Our education was not that of the classroom but of the sports arena. It was the lesson as to the grotesqueness of racism and apartheid and the effect it could have on one man, not a great cricketer but a good cricketer, that affected me, and one I have never forgotten.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Basil D'Oliveira has died.
Why, among other deaths, should D'Oliveira's passing demand that I indulge in a spot of obituary writing? He wasn't, after all, that great a cricketer. He was a good one but no more than that. The reason lies in his story and in the way it affected me.
A South African Cape coloured, D'Oliveira was denied the opportunity under South Africa's apartheid system to play cricket at the highest levels. He came to England, took British citizenship and qualified for the test team. His inclusion in the England side set off two momentums - one was the later selection of other South Africans but without the same moral justification; the second was the eventual abandonment of apartheid.
As a nine-year-old, I didn't appreciate what apartheid meant, but it was as a nine-year-old that I first saw D'Oliveira play. It was the Hastings festival match against the touring Australians, and he was in a team - A.E.R. Gilligan's XI - with another South African (Eddie Barlow, who was to become a fierce critic of apartheid) as well as a Pakistani, Mushtaq Mohammad.
What stood out from this match was the fact that, in the days when six-hitting was a rarity, D'Oliveira hit two, both out of the ground. For a nine-year-old, he was an exciting and unusual player; only Gary Sobers or Colin Milburn hit sixes.
It was my great uncle, who took me to the match, who explained the situation with D'Oliveira. I'm not sure he particularly approved of "Dolly" possibly playing for England, but for me it was hard to get my head around why he couldn't play for South Africa. But when he first appeared for England, two years later, I was ecstatic. I had, in my own small way, discovered D'Oliveira at the Hastings match; he was "my" player.
It was a further two years on when the full implications of D'Oliveira's England test place were to surface. He hadn't had a particularly good season, but he was chosen for the final test of the summer when Roger Prideaux was declared unfit. I was at that Oval match, one famous for its storm and Derek Underwood bowling England to victory against Australia on a badly rain-affected wicket.
D'Oliveira scored a hundred. 158 to be precise. There seemed to me no reason why he wouldn't now be selected for the winter tour. To South Africa.
I recall my shock when listening eagerly to the radio as the tour squad was announced. D'Oliveira wasn't in it. Tom Cartwright, a better bowler but not in D'Oliveira's league as a batsman, was chosen ahead of him. There could only have been one explanation, as far as I was concerned: politics.
What happened next was either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your point of view. Cartwright developed an injury, couldn't tour and so D'Oliveira replaced him. It was then that all hell broke out. The South African government claimed it was a political selection, which was a bit rich, the tour was called off, South Africa's own tour of England in 1970 was cancelled, and eventually sporting sanctions were imposed which did have a profound impact on finally ending apartheid.
What wasn't known, but now is, was the part that the English cricketing establishment had played in seeking to keep D'Oliveira out of the squad. The journalist and commentator E.W. Swanton was to the fore in doing so, as was Colin Cowdrey, the England captain at the time. On purely cricketing grounds, Cowdrey might have had a reasonable argument, while it also came to be known that Dolly did like a drink. But the politics had initially overriden both D'Oliveira's credentials as a player and any question as to his fitness.
A further two years on, I sat my English O Level. The exam included the option to write an essay on a sporting hero. Afterwards, I asked a friend, who I knew would have taken the sporting option, who his subject had been: Tommie Smith, the American sprinter who had given the black-gloved fist salute at the 1968 Olympics. I had written about D'Oliveira.
From different sports, we had both come to write about similar things. Through sport, in addition to music of the time as well as the not infrequent news of race issues in America, we had been exposed to the injustice and absurdity of racism. Our education was not that of the classroom but of the sports arena. It was the lesson as to the grotesqueness of racism and apartheid and the effect it could have on one man, not a great cricketer but a good cricketer, that affected me, and one I have never forgotten.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, January 04, 2008
I’m Not Looking For A New England
It is years since I actually lived in Britain, well England to be exact. Go back for a few days, and the changes as well as the frozen time are evident as are contrasts with Spain and Mallorca. One forms an impression on arrival. Land at Palma and you would be forgiven for thinking that the paranoia about air travel had failed to inveigle itself into the Spanish psyche. Land at Luton and it is different. Amongst the signs and notices for no photography (who would actually want to take a photo of a queue for passport control?) and for inconvenience (couched with a somewhat menacing apology) is a large one for something called “UK Border”. It is hard to determine whether this is intended as some form of branding exercise or whether it is a statement of the bleeding and absurdly obvious; obvious as, yes, it is a point of entry, but absurd as one tends not to think of Luton being at the border. Pass through baggage reclaim to the concourse and there one is struck by more signs. “It is against the law …” There is nothing sadder than smokers outside the revolving doors of Luton Airport in a biting December wind.
Paranoia and the force of law. Years ago, before 9/11, I had observed this dual tendency in Britain; it had come in on the back of those glorious sunny first two days of May 1997. It was not what I, or anyone I would imagine, could have foreseen; at least not the strength with which it has transformed the country. Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain.
Take the culture of Britain today, and it is condensed into all forms of digital transmission. In some ways, it has stood still or gone back to the future. Take That and The Spice Girls never really went away, Gary just got fatter and Posh became Über-Chav. Phil Mitchell’s face got puffier and now offends more in high-definition. Of the new, a reformed drug addict with an artless motormouth and big hair has become an icon for God knows what. Mixed up with outrage at the failings of the rail network (so what’s new?) are controversies regarding some never-will-be winner of “X Factor” and the use of “faggot” and “slut” in a popular Christmas song of many years ago. Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain.
And yet, amongst all these things, there are the old certainties of Britain and some new ones: the enduring beauty of its countryside even on grey, damp days, the more varied but also geometric and ordered landscape; the politeness and courtesy despite condemnations to the contrary; the strength of much comedy, a Briton’s birthright, notwithstanding the Mary Whitehousian disgust at Catherine Tate’s f-words; the outstanding quality and range of shops and supermarkets, their free market of produce and creativity. All these things contrast with Mallorca, and they contrast very favourably.
Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain. Bad and good.
QUIZ
Today’s title – there’s an oblique reference to the singer in today’s piece.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Paranoia and the force of law. Years ago, before 9/11, I had observed this dual tendency in Britain; it had come in on the back of those glorious sunny first two days of May 1997. It was not what I, or anyone I would imagine, could have foreseen; at least not the strength with which it has transformed the country. Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain.
Take the culture of Britain today, and it is condensed into all forms of digital transmission. In some ways, it has stood still or gone back to the future. Take That and The Spice Girls never really went away, Gary just got fatter and Posh became Über-Chav. Phil Mitchell’s face got puffier and now offends more in high-definition. Of the new, a reformed drug addict with an artless motormouth and big hair has become an icon for God knows what. Mixed up with outrage at the failings of the rail network (so what’s new?) are controversies regarding some never-will-be winner of “X Factor” and the use of “faggot” and “slut” in a popular Christmas song of many years ago. Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain.
And yet, amongst all these things, there are the old certainties of Britain and some new ones: the enduring beauty of its countryside even on grey, damp days, the more varied but also geometric and ordered landscape; the politeness and courtesy despite condemnations to the contrary; the strength of much comedy, a Briton’s birthright, notwithstanding the Mary Whitehousian disgust at Catherine Tate’s f-words; the outstanding quality and range of shops and supermarkets, their free market of produce and creativity. All these things contrast with Mallorca, and they contrast very favourably.
Welcome to England. Welcome to Britain. Bad and good.
QUIZ
Today’s title – there’s an oblique reference to the singer in today’s piece.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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