Harley Quin Looks At Last Week's News

By Harley Quin
June 19 2005

We think our sport is mismanaged but, as I write this, ITV is screening a race(sic) between 6 formula one cars instead of the 20 or so which normally follow one another around the tarmac in perfect formation. Apparently one set of tyres won't work well on the track and therefore it is not safe.

Farcical cannot do justice to this situation! But who will suffer from all of this? The teams? No they'll still get their sponsorship money. Formula One? Well no one takes it seriously anyway so the non-petrolheads amongst us will continue to think of it as a TV show rather than a sport. The TV companies? No, they'll still have a programme to fill their timetable and this bit of drama will probably attract more interest than the race itself. The fans? Yes of course. It costs an arm an a leg to get in to see motor racing (more fool them I say but hey, it's their sport so I support them) so to have the race turned in to a farce at the last moment is a real slap in the face. I don't suppose those responsible for this debacle will be stood at the turnstiles, as everyone files out, handing back their entrance money.

Rumour has it that before this race Bernie Ecclestone stood down in favour of the new head of Formula One - Fred Karno!

Talking of shocks - this just has to be said...

.... "Ricky Ponting, David Campese, Rolf Harris, Crocodile Dundee, Merv Hughes, Skippy the bush kangaroo, Toadfish Rebecchi your boys took one hell of a beating!"

Good on you Bangladesh, 500-1 outsiders and they still beat the best cricket team in the world. This at a time when their management has to face the ICC as to whether they should stay in the top flight of cricket - I can't think of a more appropriate irony. Brilliant, just brilliant. 

Sport is all about top dogs and under dogs and is the very reason most of us don't want these super-duper premier leagues where about four or five rich teams  play each other in a closed shop environment. Every team which is capable of playing an opponent to a reasonable level should be allowed to compete and lose without the fear of being stripped of their ability to be in the game, that's why the FA Cup has survived for so long. Thank God Bristol have been promoted and Quins have been relegated: the day the powers that be knacker our game in such a way is the day I (and know doubt many others) walk away never to return.

Glawster - So Dean Ryan is their new coach. Strewth, don't they ever learn? The bloke was a liability at Newcastle and Bristol and was so easy to wind up when at Wasps however do they think he will take them back to the top of their game? Unless I'm missing something, his personality does not smack of the cool, clever calculating nature one requires to keep a group of testosterone heavy athletes in check and in tune to ensure all their aggression and energy is properly focused. I predict they'll be fighting relegation next season.

Who's Teaching Who? - I don't know about you, but I was hooked on the TV show The Apprentice recently and couldn't believe how totally crap and over rated the various candidates were. I wouldn't have paid any of them more that £10,000 let alone the £100,000 going to the winner. As they whittled the competitors down each of them said how desperate they were to work for "Sir Alan" and appearing on the tele didn't matter a jot. "Yeah right" most of us were thinking no doubt. When push comes to shove we were right to be disbelieving. This week Sugar offered the runner up, Sairah Khan, a job after she said she really wanted to work for him to learn how to be a top flight business woman, however by that time she'd already organised an agent and was planning to take part in numerous TV and radio shows so she couldn't accept his kind offer. Sounds like she's learnt all she needs to already!

I see a Government Minister was in trouble for mentioning that redundant car workers in the Midlands could work for Tescos and the unions were saying these are skilled men and their skills should not be wasted. Forgive for being a bit thick here but if all the car worker jobs have gone, where are they going to use those skills and therefore isn't is essential to inject a bit of realism into the debate? Perhaps if Rover had been allowed to die five years ago we wouldn't have wasted millions of tax pounds trying to prop it up, the workers would have been younger (and therefore more able to retrain) and wouldn't have carried on kidding themselves that this country can support a car industry.

See you soon.