TV VIEW:MAKING SPORTY predictions is, need it be said, a risky business, the crystal ball-wielding smarty-pants' confidence in their own judgement and expertise often taking so hefty a battering that they're left wishing they'd never opened their inexpert gobs.
Like, say, those dimwitted nincompoops who called time on Alex Ferguson’s managerial career yesterday after he named Nani in his starting line-up for the Arsenal game. Huh! (Morto).
That, then, is why we’re in no position to slag Boris Becker for his pre-Australian Open final forecast, but we’ll do it any way. “Yeah, I think Murray’s going to win – I’m listening to my stomach and it tells me there could be a changing of the guard today,” he declared.
Some people allow their hearts to overrule their heads, others go on their gut instinct, but quite why Boris opted to listen to his tummy we’ll never know. When Roger Federer went two sets up he, without a hint of shame or sheepishness, looked Sue Barker in the eye and said: “Vee shouldn’t be surprised.”
Tim Henman, sitting beside Boris on the experts’ couch, came mightily close, we sensed, to reminding his colleague of his tummy’s pre-match prediction, but seeing as he, too, had forecast a “Murray in five” win he bit his tongue.
John Lloyd had fiercely disputed Tim’s prophecy, opting for “Murray in four” – “I just have a good feeling about it” – but Sue, while intent on being hopeful, was a touch more cautious, not least because the Brit was playing quite possibly the greatest tennis player of this or any other time. And, call her negative, she just half-felt that factor should be taken in to consideration.
But the BBC tummies were, largely, overruling their heads, deciding that Britain’s time – and, ergo, Andy’s — had come. After all, as Federer had told Jim Courier after his semi-final win, “I know Andy would like to win the first Grand Slam for British tennis since, what is it, 150,000 years?” Boris, incidentally, had referred to Murray as English, prompting Sue to correct him. “Or Scottish even,” she said, “we’ll take anyone”. We prayed, for Sue’s sake, that, BBC Scotland had a different presenter for the final, like, say, Dougie “the caber tosser” MacHaggis.
Otherwise the journey from devolution to independence has just become shorter.
A bad day for Andy, then, but nowhere near as testing an experience as that endured by John Terry these past few days. “I don’t think, to be honest with you, there’s any such thing anymore as a perfect person, everyone’s flawed,” said a dismayed Kevin Keegan on ESPN, when asked for a comment on the England captain’s off-the-field activities. Ray Stubbs nodded, gravely. Frank Leboeuf just looked bemused.
“You’re surprised that we’re talking about the issue in this country, aren’t you, it’s a slightly different culture in France”, said Ray to Frank, sort of insinuating that French morals are looser than the marking of Arsenal’s back four.
Anyway, despite being booked in the first half (“same old Terry, always cheating”, as the naughty Burnley faithful put it), there was a happy ending for the beleaguered lad. “You know what the headlines will be, don’t you,” said Jon Champion at full-time, “Terry plays away and scores.” Boom boom.
What Terry could do to take his mind off things is take a lobster for a walk. True, Donncha O’Callaghan has, in the past, denied doing any such thing, but it’s so surreally wonderful an image we are loath to disbelieve it. Besides, are you brave enough to call Paul O’Connell a liar? Us neither.
Did O'Connell enjoy O'Callaghan's wedding just before Christmas? "I did, yeah," he told Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late, "he'd a great tan for it considering he wasn't away." And with that Sunbed-gate was born.
“You got over 500 points in your Leaving?” “I did, yeah – that’s about 410 points more than Donncha O’Callaghan probably got.” Regarding looming fatherhood. “It’s your first child,” asked Tubridy.
“Yeah, it is . . . hopefully,” said O’Connell.
Will someone please give this man his own show? Two words, as they say: “leg” and “end”.
While Declan Kidney might love O’Connell it’s probably fair to say that Giovanni Trapattoni is yet to come over all besotted with Andy Reid. Andy, though, is getting on with it, trying to do his Sunderland bit.
Sky's Soccer Saturdaypaid him a visit in a recording studio where he was strumming his guitar on a tune by a local band. He told us that when footballing things are going well he listens to the Stereophonics when he gets home, but if they're going badly "I'll probably play a bit of Leonard Cohen".
Sunderland have lost six and drawn three of their last nine Premier League games, so Leonard has never been off Andy’s turntable, so to speak. Listening to his stomach or taking a lobster for a walk would, possibly, be a more cheering experience, but who are we to forecast anything? Nani? As our tummy always told us, Leg End.
