Harley's On Holiday So I'm Whinging

By Glen Leat
July 25 2005

I’d been waiting for the next instalment from Harley Quin, when a post card drops on to my doormat telling me the old whinger is sunning himself on some Greek island and will I cover his slot.

So here goes, I’ve put a metaphorical pebble in my shoe to help get in to a whingey mood…

Cricket
What a shambles. Not so much the cricket but the choice of using Lords as the opening venue. Who, but an English sports administrator, would choose a location where we rarely win to host the opening game against the best side in the world? To compound this situation we opt for Old Trafford, where Shanie loves to bowl, as a venue in preference to Headingly, which the Aussies know is a lottery pitch and the most likely place for them to lose. Don’t the ECB want England to win?

As for the players, my neighbour’s dog catches more balls than Geraint Jones. Was this bloke dragged in off the street as part of a “Jim’ll Fix It” routine? Normally in cricket, if the ball comes off the bat behind the stumps everyone shouts, “Leave it to the man with the gloves!”. Not with this guy around. If Jones is playing in the next Test match then I’ll know someone has a few bob on the Aussies to win 5-0.

Ian Bell, good player but certainly not a better Test player than Graham Thorpe. You don’t have to be John Arlott to work that one out. Kevin Pieterson, looks likely to be the bloke the Aussie fear most in terms of hitting their best bowlers out of the ground. What do our selectors do? Choose between Thorpe and Pieterson. This demonstrates to me that the lunatics are definitely in charge of the cricket asylum.

Vaughan has “Botham captainitis” and needs to be relieved very quickly so he can regain his form during this series. It happened in 1981 after the second Test (at Lords – not the first Test please note) and the rest, as they say….

As I’m talking about cricket I’d just like to say farewell to that lovely Glawsterman, David Sheppard, who retired last week from the game. To see him hopping around on Nelson made me realise why sports such as cricket and rugby epitomise what this country is all about. No, not all wobbly, but slightly eccentric and professional but with a pleasant amateur streak running through it.

Terrorists
Who’d be a marksman copper eh? Many of us think we work under stress: we’re pathetic to moan by comparison. Get the job right, after making a split second decision and you’re just doing your job. Get it wrong and all the lefties go charging after you. These are the same lefties who the poor copper is defending in the first place.

We’re in troubled times and we all have a responsibility for making the life of our policemen and women as easy as possible. That means not running away when told to stop, not leaving bags unattended and recognising that if we don’t stick to some fairly simple rules the consequences could be dire.

I’m sorry for the chap who died but I’m equally sorry for the copper who shot him, there are two victims here!

Come back Harley, this whinging is harder than it looks.