"I done wrestled..." : A Day With Ali

One of the many luxuries afforded to students of English literature is days like today. I woke up, took my usual leisurely breakfast of weetabix (with a spoonful of Special K for the 40 year old woman in me), a sausage, some scrambled eggs and two hash browns. I ate alone. All my contemporaries had rushed off to lectures at 9am, leaving me free to enjoy my breakfast with the sun and Devon's green and pleasant land out the window.

I found out that today was Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday and was feeling decidedly controversial. All I saw was praise. Praise, praise, praise! Greatness here, legend there. No one seemed to be making any mention of the more shady years of Muhammad Ali. I was aware that these shady years existed, these years in the extreme right, so I set out to find out more about them.

I didn't have to look very far. The ever dependable Matthew Syed had got their first, filed his copy, The Times had it, the anti-story! Good job he had done, too.

The speech at a KKK rally where he advocated racial segregation and spoke out against inter-race marriages, the speech in full Nazi uniform to the American Nazis, the man was divisive in the extreme. Yesterday, the 16th January, was Martin Luther King day, for goodness sake! The two men couldn't be further apart. (It's interesting and nothing more to pose the question, what if Muhammad Ali had shared the views of Martin Luther King Jr. who died in 1969? What if Ali had continued his legacy?) Would I have acted differently to Ali? King's stance is so famous because it goes against the natural reaction to turn against your oppressors.

Still, why didn't people (apart from Syed) talk about it? Why was there no clause in the unending fountain of praise the poured forth today that mentioned all this?

The answer is, of course, that Muhammad Ali is a poet. The best sort of poet - an orator, and one with a cause. And as well as being a poet, he was the most charming man of the 20th century, when not in Nazi uniform, that is. In this age of heavyweight tossers, Ali was a thoroughbred whose trash-talk was thought out, measured, and not just choreographed to entice punters to shell out for the match on Sky Box Office.

When I say Ali was a poet, I don't mean the little rhymes he came up with, though they are obviously poetic.

"We gon' get it on, 'cos we don' get along'"

is a pleasant ditty and it rhymes and is, in a sense, poetic. But Ali was more than that. Everything he did was poetic. To watch him skipping rope was poetic. Even watching him sparring, allowing himself to be pummeled, preparing his body for pain - it was all poetic. He's no poet in the way Robert Frost or Whitman were poetic. Ali was more visceral, not to be found in some book with his name at the bottom of the page. He was right there, rippling and dripping and talking, his voice rising and falling safe in the knowledge that everyone in his presence was absolutely captivated.

When Ali says, "I done wrestled with a alligator. That's right. I have wrestled with a alligator. I done tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail!" this is more than poor grammar. It's language 'made strange' - it's literary. Why are we taken in by it? 'Cos he 'done wrestled', he 'done tussled', he 'done handcuffed'. Ali is all action. He done it!

Norman Mailer, who chronicled the 'Rumble in the Jungle' in his book 'The Fight', writes, "for Ali to compose a few words of real poetry would be equal to an intellectual throwing a good punch." He isn't talking Ali down, more emphasising that Ali was a fighter, first and foremost, not an intellectual. What Mailer is referring to isn't the little rhymes that Ali would spout at press conferences but the more serious, private, and seemingly shallow poetry that Ali took great pride in and insisted in showing Mailer, who he regarded as the 'Champ' of writing.

Ali was all action. Mailer said he ran a marathon everyday in his speech alone. But he had a purpose, even after he moved away from the Nation of Islam, who had clearly begun manipulating him, towards a more peaceful, reflective, conventional Sunni Islam. His stance on the Vietnam War - "No Vietcong ever called me 'Nigger'!" - endeared him to millions across the globe whilst simultaneously alienating him from white, middle class Americans. Ali didn't care. They had probably never liked him anyway. No, Ali's purpose was wider, he was taking on the world. He was doing it, doing, always doing, and doing it for the black man.

My evening finished with re-watching 'When We Were Kings' which, as I had expected, annulled any of my self-consciously controversial reservations about Ali. How could it not? When Ali is placed next to the wooden, horribly insensitive, probably ignorant George Foreman, Ali is on a different level. When Foreman walks off the plane with his Belgian Shepherd, he blows it with the Zairois, even with the added surprise that he is actually black, blacker than Ali.

Ali is on a mission that is wider than a boxing match. It's spiritual and it's African. Being in Africa means something to him. He has a purpose wider than knocking down George Foreman. When he goes out jogging he's messing around with the kids, lifting them up, inciting their 'Boma yé' chant. We don't always like sportsmen who claim to have a purpose wider than winning. That doesn't fit, we say. Be a politician in your own time. For now, you must win. But Ali so clearly believed it, spoke it with poetry, with rhetoric, and drew us in.

By those final rounds, me, just like 120,000 Zairois in late October 1974 are shouting "Ali, boma yé! Ali, boma yé." And George Foreman hitting the deck is greeted with a cheer, a restrained cheer, because I'm not in Kinshasa and people in Exeter are trying to sleep.

Ali was infectious. Humans are drawn to engaging people and it doesn't matter what they are talking about when it is said in such a way. I now understand the happy birthday messages. I feel like I've spent a day with Ali, warts and all. And when faced with such a man who had such faith and such confidence in his cause and such ability and such sporting class and grace and sheer unadulterated brute force, I hereby accept defeat to the flea who supposed to go down in three, Muhammad Ali. In the words of Don King, "Ali even motivates the dead."

Assessing the English Premiership

The Aviva Premiership has finally cracked. The veil of illusion has fallen away and the 'mediocrity', as Stuart Barnes put in today's Sunday Times, has finally been exposed.

With Northampton, London Irish, the hapless Bath now the formidable Leicester Tigers, for many years the English shining light in Europe, out of the reckoning, it is time we re-examined the merits of this league in relation to the RaboDirect Pro 12 and the Top 14.

Saracens and Harlequins, first and second domestically, are now the only English teams with a chance of progressing, with Harlequins doing so from second in their pool.

Is this down to the salary cap and therefore smaller or worse squads? Not really, when the evidence shows that Harlequins and Saracens are competing on two fronts. To blame the difference in chequebooks is to hide the real rugby reasons behind this decline.

I always preferred the Premiership. A child raised on Sky's groundbreaking coverage, I felt like I knew Miles Harrison and Graeme Simmons and Dewi Morris was just an awkward uncle who I wanted to go away. Their coverage, excellent though it was, gave the impression that the Premiership was better than the other leagues. Why wouldn't they show the other ones, I naively assumed?

To a certain extent I was right. It is a league made up of proper rugby clubs, with proper grounds and proper histories, not created in the 1990s by the governing bodies, like those in the Celtic nations. The fact that for me to watch the Celtic League would involve watching a struggling Edinburgh was undoubtedly a factor - had I been going along to Thomond Park regularly I doubt I would have felt such a pull down south.

The Celtic League was a false league, I would argue. Teams can afford to throw caution to the wind because there is no threat of relegation. No wonder they perform better in the Heineken Cup when their domestic matches can afford to be warm-ups for the bigger stage. I no longer believe this. Yes, the centrally-contracted nature of the Irish provinces means their player-welfare structures are far more advanced so top internationals can play less games, but the Celtic League is a serious title and Leinster, Munster and the Ospreys take it extremely seriously.

Does the supposed greater pressure of the Premiership lead to unimaginative, stodgy rugby? Are teams less risk-taking because of relegation? I doubt it. The English teams involved in the Heineken Cup are rarely worried about relegation at the same time. Instead, the unimaginative, stodgy rugby is a result of a lack of ambition and an inclination towards the the conservative.

Who are the most expansive and best-coached teams? Harlequins and Saracens. Harlequins play a very free-flowing, continuous game. They want pace to put teams on the back foot. Saracens have a similar ability as well as being structured in the extreme.

Sky's Dean Ryan highlighted a pyramid of skills or qualities that he believes make up success in Europe.

I would agree with the base and the top. What Ryan classes the foundation, the building blocks, are true for any rugby team. You won't have the ball without a good set-piece, you won't keep it without good contact skills and you won't be in the game without a solid defence. But Ryan gives too much credence to having good 'phase play' - a horrible phrase - and 'shape' - a slightly less horrible phrase. Organisation is surely just every player pulling in the same direction, like watching Toulouse. Execution and precision are far more important than 'phase play' and 'shape', and this is a fact that most English clubs should wake up to.

Leinster and Toulouse are leading the way in Europe with their execution, precision and willingness to have a go. They have the foundation and they have that x-factor that is not inhibited by some dogmatic 'shape'.

This is something Harlequins and Conor O'Shea have realised this season. The sooner the other English clubs catch up, the better for their league and their chances in the Heineken Cup, because the rest of Europe is passing them by.

Thoughts For 2012

Here are some thoughts for the 2012 year in rugby.

1) The Scotsman disables the ability to comment on its articles. These days everyone and his dog has a view on something and there a few positives in knowing what Tam from Cumbernauld, or Jockey Badger, or 'snake in the grass' thinks about who will wear Scotland's 10 shirt. I reckon about half of the comments are from Glaswegians complaining about west-coast rugby folk getting a raw deal or Borderers reminding 'posh edinburgh folk' that rugby is still played in the region.

2) Rugby continues to be a sport for all shapes and sizes. Few things are more depressing than seeing teams lining up in the tunnel and each one being indistinguishable from the next - that is rugby league. Props must remain short and stout. For this to happen, the IRB must continue the improvements they are making in the scrummage. Matches are no longer being blighted by interminably collapsing scrums as they were 18 months ago. Similarly, for there to be space for those remaining players who duck and dive, and those who can run an arc and swerve and cut and slash, the ruck must be policed properly.

3) Rugby learns more from Sonny-Bill Williams and his famed offloads. He is potentially one of the players who come along and change the sport by updating everyone's perceptions about the game.

No longer should the back of the hand offloads be considered flash. This is what is now needed to break down defences. And it is definitely not the preserve of a few players who just 'have it', that manual dexterity to flip a ball out of the back of the hand. It can be practised and it is worth it.

Some coaches will naturally react against it because it might seem flash but it needn't be. Like all skills, if it is done at the wrong time or done too often then it will become useful. But imagine a team, or even just a back-line who have the ability to offload the ball in the trickiest of circumstances. Like passing practice, all it does is make players more comfortable on the ball.

It will revolutionise support play and turn half-breaks into breakaway tries. It's exciting, and players and coaches should begin devoting time to this neglected way of breaking down a defence.

The Prince

As the BBC readies itself for its coverage of the upcoming internationals - and Eddie Butler grooms the gravitas in his voice for an inspirational montage video - let us hark back to a bygone age.

The hero of the day is Prince Oblensky. From one of the oldest royal houses in Europe, the Rurik Dynasty, and therefore the founders of what eventually became Russia, Oblensky was the royal real deal. That was, however, his family's downfall when Lenin and co.'s arrival forced them to flee in 1917. They settled in North London.

'The Prince' went up to Oxford in 1934 to read PPE and left several years later with a fourth-class degree, two blues, and 4 England caps - a desirable outcome in anyone's eyes.

Whilst still at Oxford he played for Leicester Football Club, now the Tigers. One cannot imagine a Russian prince turning out for Leicester these days, I mean, would he get on with Richard Cockerill? But then again, Leicester have always been that little bit different, so maybe his unusual background would have endeared him to the characteristically unpleasant Welford Road faithful.

His England debut in 1936 against the All Blacks returned two tries which would have undoubtedly pleased the young man no end.


OblenskyTry1936 by Frederic

Oblensky played a further three times for England before joining the Auxiliary Air Force. In March 1940, a day after being selected to play against Wales, Oblensky's training plane crashed into a ravine at the end of the runway after landing in Suffolk, breaking his neck. He was 24.

Pete Wishart MP - The Scotsman, 13th Jan 2012

Sport and politics do mix and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and an apologist.

It's not often that I read The Scotsman, the east of Scotland's premier tabloid newspaper, but I like to keep an up to date list of their mistakes. So that is how I found Pete Wishart's article on sport. As will probably become clear, Mr Wishart and I look at sport in very different ways. Why The Scotsman felt they should allow an SNP MP to write such an arrogant (and poorly written) article about sport, I do not know.

I am a huge fan of the British and Irish Lions, possibly more so than my national team due to the sheer rarity and grandeur of these teams. I love the idea of players who batter each other all season long coming together and donning the same shirt for the same cause in what John Hopkins called, "a cross between a medieval crusade and a prep school outing."

So imagine my outrage when Mr Wishart writes,

"Following independence I hope that there will be occasions where we will come together as a "British" team just like we do in international rugby as the British Lions (sic)."

How dare he! If he is so desperate to leave the UK behind and let Scotland go it alone then how dare he still crave a piece of the British and Irish Lions. If he dislikes the UK so much that he wants to tear it apart and dislikes the very essence of 'Britishness' then how dare he make such a claim.

If he wants to 'come together' then he should campaign for Scotland to remain as part of the Union. If you insist on believing something so petty as independence then at least have the courage to follow it through. If you don't like the UK then don't try and hold on to the bits than you do like.

Now, I'm fully aware that an independent Scotland would still form a part of the Lions, of course it would. But for an SNP MP to come out picking and choosing which parts of British life he still wants an independent Scotland to be a part of shows a deep-rooted uncertainty about independence and a total disrespect for everything that the Lions stand for. Mr Wishart is the sort of narrow-minded fan who would watch the Lions and only cheer if a Scottish player scored a try.

The rest of the article is simply Olympics bashing. It's the sort of thing one would expect to hear from an MP whose only interest in the games is how they will benefit his constituents in Perth and North Perthshire. The crux of his unhappiness seems to rest in a total dissatisfaction with Perth being far away from London. Sorry, Pete, that's geography. He writes,

"Scotland will be overwhelmingly positive about the games and the potential for opportunities and spin-offs it offers us as a nation."

This is a horribly patronising way to view the greatest show of human endeavour on Earth and Scottish responses to it. Does Mr Wishart view Scots as miserly figures rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of weasling some extra cash out of the games?

I aim to write mainly about rugby, but the recent flurry of independence talk left me wanting to write about that too. Thank goodness for Pete Wishart MP for giving me the opportunity to write about both.

The lesson is as follows: if you don't like the very idea of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and make it your job to see it crumble, then do not have the cheek to claim continued involvement and interest in one of the UK's most wonderful institutions. You're either in or you're out, Pete.

The Bloodied 10 Shirt

The more observant of those cold and lonely souls who occasionally check this page will notice a slight picture change. That well known 'rugger bugger', Mrs Mona Lisa, has been replaced by a photo I found on my  computer from last year.

I remember the match like it was yesterday. In the first knock-out round of the Crabos championship versus Toulon. A hugely satisfying game, played on a lovely pitch, baking under the Villanche-sur-Saone sunshine, with a raucous crowd along one side. We played such wonderful rugby that the Toulon fans felt the need to jump the barrier and invade the pitch when there ensued a huge fight that spilled into the first few rows of the stand.

Perhaps that's how the blood ended up on the back of the shirt. The irony, is of course, that for that match, it wasn't my shirt. Still, nice picture all the same.

A Review of 'Jonny: My Autobiography'

I stayed up till half past one this morning finishing Jonny Wilkinson’s autobiography, a tremendously engaging book that was ‘unputdownable’. It was genuinely gripping.

We, the general public, rugby watching or otherwise, always knew Jonny wasn’t quite right. All those hours kicking, we knew they couldn’t be healthy. But he was always so fiercely reserved that, until now, we’ve never really seen beneath the surface, beneath the pose – bum out, hands clasped, breath just escaping out the side of the mouth as the left foot hardens itself for impact.

When I was 12 I used to kick like Jonny, clasping my hands in wide eyed admiration. This was a technique I perfected in the garden. We were lucky enough to have a piece of grass which was made for a set of rugby posts at one end. And, one Christmas, Santa brought some nice, shiny poles that were soon erected. I soon had a ball bag and a motley set of Gilbert balls, some size 4, some size 5. I knew which balls had the biggest sweet spot, which ones carried further, the duff ones.

I tried to be Jonny. I would always end a session with six kicks, the same six that Jonny would take hours and hours over. I wanted to do that to. I wanted it to matter that much. But, like most normal human beings, I could never do it. Sometimes 5 out of 6 was good enough and I happily skipped back inside to plump myself in front of the television. For several Christmasses after, I would make a point of kicking on Christmas day because I had heard that’s what Jonny did. The difference between me and him is, of course, that he kicked every day and Christmas day was simply another day to get better at kicking. I failed to grasp this, and despite not kicking anywhere near every day, thought it was impressive enough to be out on Christmas day even though I hadn’t kicked on Christmas Eve or would kick on Boxing Day. To be honest, it was simply an affectation.

For Jonny, the very idea of an 'affectation' is anathema. He is an obsessive. He talks of the rages he would fly into – at his long-suffering mother, his brotherly brother and guru Dave Alred. Always a picture of serenity, we had no idea that he would swear and argue. This is single-mindedness was taken to the next level, a more dangerous level. He writes of how he became so upset (as a grown man) that he bit his own hand, causing some painful bruising.

The book, however, doesn’t always show Jonny as a reclusive obsessive. In his early days he would go out drinking after internationals with the rest of the squad. In fact, the vomit-and-all manner in which he describes his relationship with alcohol forms some of the funniest sections of the book.

What we see is someone who found fame cripplingly difficult. Life was easy when he went out and Lawrence Dallaglio was the one getting recognised. When Jonny started becoming that famous, he stepped away, removing himself from the public eye completely. There is a definite sense of paranoia surrounding the whole thing. One can’t help but feel sorry for him.

The injuries are some of the most freakish collection of months and years that rugby has ever seen. Unsurprisingly, he was totally unprepared for a life of rehab. Most players get fed up but, like most things, Jonny takes this to a new level. He becomes depressed and more should be made of this. It should be made more explicit that he suffered from clinical depression as it would massively help reduce stigma surrounding the illness. Instead, it is never fully stated, glossed over.

Undoubtedly, there is some sickly schadenfreude that one feels when Wilkinson admits that he began turning up late for rehab sessions and sometimes missing them altogether. Turns out there is a limit to his determination. It is poor form from this particular reader, but like the references to hangovers, it is pleasing to see that this side of him does exist.

‘Blackie’ is an absolute shining light in amongst all the darkness. He is friend, trainer, mentor, motivator and spiritual guru. A huge amount of Wilkinson’s success must be down to coming across a man like this. Similarly with Dave Alred, a world leader in his field, who Wilkinson was able to feed off for over a decade.
 

Some people do not come out so well. Jeremy Guscott, unsurprisingly, is confirmed as being the absolute berk he appears to be. Similarly with Austin Healey. To mention them is a quite contemptible if I am not going to balance their names up with those of Mike Catt, Richard Hill, Pat Lam, Inga Tuigamala, Sparks (brother) and the various other gentlemen that Wilkinson admires.

Some things, however, don’t tally up. Wilkinson, and perhaps Owen Slot can be blamed for this, far too often drifts into continuous reference to his obsessive side. ‘That’s my obsessive streak kicking in’ is heard so much it loses its effect. It is simply a stylistic issue even if, at several points, it becomes downright frustrating. When Clive Woodward was insisting on Wilkinson hitting fewer rucks and staying on his feet more, the player shows huge reluctance, claiming that to do so would be contrary to his instincts. Scant regard is given to the needs of the team in relation to what Jonny does naturally. It grates. I, for example, have recently found tackling to be against my nature, but if a coach says I need to shore up my channel I am not going to justify my refusal to tackle by some self-reflexive bullshit about my ‘nature’.

Again, when Wilkinson is a part of the 2005 Lions tour to New Zealand, he describes the first few days. He notes how well prepared they are, especially a booklet which has been produced containing background details on all the players. This seems like a sensible idea, helping everyone get to know each other better in a short period of time. Wilkinson, however, disregards it, though he admits that he knew he should have read it. For someone who so openly prides himself on his all-consuming desire to not let his teammates down, this shows an uncharacteristic lack of attention to the details.

Thankfully, he has found peace at Toulon. In fact, that may be wrong, he will probably only find peace when his body properly gives up on him – and it is truly miraculous that he has lasted this long. His powers of comeback are unimaginable. The book gives no hint toward his career post rugby – the playing of rugby, that is. I predict he will remain at Toulon as a coach or mentor of some sort. A return to England is unlikely for many many years. He is clearly very happy in the sun at a club where he feels valued. His new ‘spiritual outlook’, which is occasionally laid on too thick, appears to have widened his outlook so that rugby and his extraordinary mind no longer control him.

Throughout, Wilkinson is as kind, thoughtful and self-deprecating as his reputation suggests. He is classy enough to avoid slagging off coaches and fellow players except in the odd instance where it is done with dignity. That is such a given that it is probably offensive to mention it. At the risk of treating him like a psychiatrist’s test case, Wilkinson is so fascinating because he is a solitary individualist who is obsessed with not letting people down. It is a book that deals with fame and celebrity in our time and their damaging effects on someone who feared their effects. It is terrifically funny at times, sad at others and absorbing and anyone with even a passing interest in rugby union will struggle to put it down. I may no longer clasp my hands as I did as a 12 year old, but I am just as wide-eyed and he is still very much my hero.