Rolling up the sleeves | Varsity Online

Rolling up the sleeves | Varsity Online:

'via Blog this'

My first article for Varsity:

Eyebrows were raised after a weekend of dogged resolve in English sport, prompting questions over whether Stuart Lancaster and Andy Flower have been sharing laboratory sessions with the absent-minded professor that discovered "flubber," a rubber-like super-bouncy substance.

The substance that appears to be influencing British sport at the moment

The cause of this curiosity is England’s newfound bounce-back-ability, a word that definitely exists, especially in the absence of a rational explanation for seemingly improbable events.

The first of these came when an inexperienced rugby side – with just 248 caps between them, and eight players with 10 appearances or less – staged an impressive comeback on a snowy outing in Rome in the second of their Six Nations fixtures. Deploying all their reserves of willpower, England scored 13 unanswered points in 8 minutes (with a conversion rate higher than Berlusconi’s in a bunga-bunga session/faster than rising cost of Italian bond yields), suggesting that the Italians had colder fingers during this period. The second event came when England rediscovered their mojo in the cricket, thrashing Pakistan by 130 runs in the first one-day international in Abu Dhabi.

Yet comparing England to a green, pulsating, bouncing blob at this stage may seem overly generous, particularly when you consider that the rugby outfit are still to score a try that doesn’t rely on a charitable donation. Not to belittle such random acts of kindness, but it would be nice to score a try that does not rely on a Charlie Hodgson charge-down. England will be aware that Welsh largesse is harder to come by, since the RFU doesn’t hold charitable status in Wales. And if they aren’t already aware of the effects of devolution on tax law, surely they will be after Twickenham, where England look set to take the points quicker than you can say ‘Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru’ (National Assembly for Wales).

Similarly, the large margin of victory in the cricket should not obscure what was, with one notable exception – Alastair Cook, whose knock of 134 was also the difference between the sides – still a batting capitulation at the hands of any bowler who was able to spin the ball any more than the width of an amoeba. On a positive note, it was better than the test series. Realistically, however, it was hard not to be, given how low the bar was set, lower even than Homerton’s performance in the Thomkins table.

Moreover it is hard to laud England’s performance without lamenting the Pakistani collapse. Fortunately, the latter appear now to have reclaimed the mantle of self-destruction that England hogged throughout the Test Series. In an attempt to emulate the farcical displays of assistance in the rugby, Pakistan has spontaneously plumped to become a net foreign aid donor by the end of the series, ignoring Saeed Ajmal’s (Pakistan’s best bowler) wishes to the contrary.

Context, however, is everything, since it could so easily have been worse. Rewind just one month: the RFU was in disarray following the shambles of the World Cup, culminating in the acrimonious resignation of long-time coach Martin Johnson; in the cricket, whitewashed by a lower-ranked Pakistani side in the Test Series, where England’s batsmen managed to surpass 200 runs on only two occasions, the selectors were left with the unenviable task of wondering which batsmen to drop, and how many.

Viewed in this way, damage limitation has already been a success. In the rugby, victory against the Italians makes it two wins from two, despite the tricky conditions and inexperienced setup. As for the cricket, England still tops the test rankings and by now will have scheduled a crash course on not-getting-out-cheaply-to-any-bowler-that-threatens-to-impart-any-turn-on-the-ball. I hope.

Unlike Philip Brainard when he discovered the magical formula, fans and players alike are firmly grounded. The self-criticism that characterises the teams’ approach is refreshing to see. Ultimately, it could help to puncture the inevitable tide of nationalistic fervour, which serves only to unrealistically inflate expectations. English sport isn’t in such a bad place after all.

This time will be different. I promise.

Obviously it should be Redknapp. I mean, it’s not like the FA have made rash decisions in the past, pressured by public opinion or overly reflexive in response to previous failures in managerial choices.

Clearly such mistakes are a thing of the past. Clearly there will be no knee-jerk transition from the ice-cool Sven to the pally Maclaren. Clearly the disciplinary deficiencies of the latter will not be superseded by an authoritarian Italian.

For one thing, a ‘shortlist’ is being considered. Imagine that: a list of names. Real names. Of people. (Hopefully this list isn’t as short as the last one, Fabio the sole feature).

To be sure, Harry has plenty going for him. He’s not a crook, as the media are suddenly at pains to tell us. He also isn’t a hamster. Or a dog. Or a long list of other, equally unemployable, organisms.

It helps that he’s likeable, earning him a healthy dose of media good-will. His competency at Spurs probably wouldn’t harm his CV either. But let’s face it, he’s not a stand-out candidate, and he’d be assuming a poisoned chalice – one which no sane or ambitious type would ever contemplate.

You see, part of the problem is the national psyche. There has long been a belief – perhaps dating back as far as 1966 – that the time will come again. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But the public expects, and all players since have been shouldered with that expectation.

Fat Les and the crowd that sung Vindaloo are guilty of a fatal error: they wrongly assume that nationalistic devotion to an all-but-hopeless cause can militate against the failures that will invariably arise from a sub-optimally managed and less-than-talented squad.

But history cruelly demonstrates that shouting loudly is no indication as to the validity of those claims. Just ask Balotelli for futher information about that one.

Ultimately, while 14K per day is a big number, I don’t envy Fabio’s successor, because only a world cup will satisfy the fans. And winning a world cup, well, it ain’t easy.

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/sport/capellos-successor-in-for-a-rough-ride

Booting gender myths into touch

In response:

You may be mistaking correlation for causation in your reading of the statistics. The fact that men express a higher interest with sport is more likely to be the result of socialisation rather than an inherent interest in sporting activities.

It is easy to see how this arises. Gender stereotyping happens even before children are born. Baby boys are handed squishy footballs and told that manly men take an interest in football, while their sisters are handed dolls and told that sport is a manly activity. So the first explanation for the statistics may simply be that they are conditioned away from sport from a young age.

But even if conditioning does not change women's internal attitudes towards sport, social pressure may shape the one they are willing to voice in public. As in, when the interviewer asks whether they like football, they feel obliged to give the womanly answer since that is what is expected from them.

So yeah, the whole 'interest' thing is a bit spurious, particularly since the study was probably conducted in a biased way by men to trying to prove a point.

(Charlotte is probably also right about the unrepresentative nature of the data sample, by the by.)

Women? Play football? You must be joking.

Below is a (fairly self-explanatory) transcript of what my friend wrote:

Dear Mischa,

You invited me to provide you with some evidence to prove the theory that men are more interested in sport than women (a point which few reasonable people would disagree with). Consider the following:

39% of the UK’s men say that they take an interest in the Premier League, as opposed to 13% of the nation’s women (pg. 36/7 of the Ofcom report).

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/38173/38173_104_7.pdf

Furthermore if we consider the stated levels of interest in sport, we find a strong positive correlation between the strength of interest and the proportion of men. Even if we amalgamate the ‘passionate’ and ‘strong’ sections, we still find that, taking an average, 84.5% of these fans are men (more than 5 times the number of women) (pg. 41). In addition, men form 78% of the Premier League’s fans (pg. 43).

Moving on to cricket, and broadening the notion of ‘interest’, let us consider the following report from Cricket Australia (bear in mind that Australia has a good record of gender equality in sport and a number of its female teams are successful):

89.55% of cricket players nationwide are male. On the basis of Cricket Australia’s mission statement, ‘to give all young people a ‘fair go’ regardless of their gender’ (pg. 80) it would be inaccurate and unscientific to assert that the relative paucity of women and girls in cricket is due to a lack of opportunities.

http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/whats_the_score/pdf/cricket.pdf

The same story emerges when you look at rugby. It’s understandable that participation among women is low (5% in Australian rugby league) given the physical nature of the game, but in terms of fans, it transpired in a New Zealand study that 73% of rugby union’s crowd capacity were male (pg. 5). http://marketing-bulletin.massey.ac.nz/V15/MB_V15_A3_Garland.pdf

I could continue but my enthusiasm to continue proving a self-evident point is waning. I hope the veracity of my research satisfies you as to the truth of the matter.

Yours in cordial friendship,

Schmates