Classic After-Dinner Sports Tales. Jonathan Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ for the game of football, whenever and wherever they follow their team.

      Witness – Seville 2003, UEFA Cup final, Celtic 2-3 Porto.

      UEFA decided to give the ‘fair play’ award for that year to the supporters of Glasgow Celtic Football Club, for their impeccable behaviour and attitude, after 80,000 of them descended on Seville for the final. This is the first time the award has ever been presented to a set of fans rather than a team!

      Right from their first forays into Europe and beyond, the supporters have been there in their thousands, to witness the ups and downs of their team, being magnanimous in victory and retaining a sense of humour in defeat.

      During the 1990s Rangers were dominant in Scotland, and Celtic were not the force they had been during the Jock Stein era. In the 1996/97 season they faced another early exit from Europe, this time at the hands of Hamburg. After a first-leg defeat at Parkhead, 0-2, Celtic were trailing 2-0 in Hamburg and there was no way back.

      The 4,000 supporters who had travelled with them were hopelessly outnumbered and trying to make as much noise as possible in support of their team, but it was the masses of jubilant Hamburg supporters who were raising the roof with the chants of their team’s victory.

      Then from the middle of the Celtic support came a call asking for the crowd to hush.

      ‘Sssshhhh! Sssshhhhh! Ssssshhhhhh!’

      The cry spread throughout the Celtic support and soon they were all putting their fingers to their lips and urgently ‘shushing’ those around them. Before you knew it the whole of the Celtic support were silent. This was noticed by the surrounding Hamburg fans, who, wondering what the urgency was for the call for hush, very quickly shushed themselves and the whole ground into silence. What had been a raging torrent of triumphalism just moments before, was suddenly as quiet as the grave and you could clearly hear the calls from the players on the park, shouting to each other, as the game went on. Silently everyone waited.

      After about twenty seconds of this unnatural, eerie silence the original group of Celtic supporters who had started the call for hush, jumped to their feet and started singing at the top of their voices

      ‘Can you hear the Hamburg sing, No-o, No-o!

      Can you hear the Hamburg sing, No-o, No-o.’

      Who ever said that we never had a sense of humour, even in defeat!

      PAT DEWES

       Successful South African businessman and sports entrepreneur, whose first-class cricket career went by in a flash in the 1970s.

      This was told by D.H. Robins in an after-dinner speech at the Wanderers, Johannesburg during his team’s tour of South Africa in 1974/75.

      The Duke of Norfolk was invited to be a guest steward during Royal Week at Ascot. In the parade ring he spied a trainer slip something from his pocket and feed it to a horse.

      The Duke strode importantly across the ring and confronted the trainer. ‘I say my good man, what was that you fed to the horse just now?’

      ‘Nuffink but sugar Guv’nor,’ replied the trainer.

      ‘Let me see,’ demanded the Duke, and the trainer produced two more lumps of sugar from the pocket of his coat. He popped one into his own mouth and offered the other to the Duke. Now feeling a little foolish, the Duke swallowed the sugar, turned and left.

      The trainer then turned to his jockey to give him his riding instructions.

      ‘From the off, I want you to settle her down against the rail and five or six off the pace. When you get into the straight, move her to the outside and give her a couple of reminders with the whip. If anyone passes you after that it will either be me or the Duke of Norfolk.’

      It was a typical stifling February day in Durban. I was in the slips for my club, Zingari, during a club game against Durban High School Old Boys. Despite the fact that we had pretty much an all-Provincial attack, including the world-class Vince van der Bijl, we were being put to the sword by the DHSOB opening bat, one Barry Anderson Richards.

      As yet another awesomely elegant Richards cover drive clattered into the pickets to bring up his 150, Bruce Groves, Barry’s former opening partner for Natal, left his position next to me, walked up to Richards and said, ‘Give us a kiss Barry.’

      ‘What?’ responded Richards. ‘Whatever for?’ ‘Because,’ said Bruce, ‘I like a bit of intimacy when I’m getting a good f***!’

      JASON DODD

       Long-serving captain of Southampton FC, who played over fifteen seasons with Southampton, having been signed from Bath in 1989.

      The Art of Football Management

      Coming into the dressing room after a defeat is not a nice feeling. After one game, Chris Nicholl the manager was going mental at us when somebody outside leant on the light switch, plunging us into darkness. Seconds later, the light came back on, to reveal the Boss in boxing pose, hands up and ready to jab. His words were, ‘Well, you had your chance and I was ready.’ He thought the boys had planned to turn off the light and were going to jump him! Being a big chap, he wouldn’t have had any problems with that, especially from me!

      NEIL DURDEN SMITH

       ‘Durders Of Course’ (so named as the answer to the question ‘Who was at the party/reception/dinner/premiere last night?’) was a member of the Test March Special team in the 1960s and 1970s, and was involved in the conception and establishment of the Rugby World Cup. He is a former chairman of the Lord’s Taverners.

      I have to admit to feeling partly responsible for the West Indies being bowled out for by far the lowest score in their history, at least until England got hold of them in Jamaica in early 2004. Let me explain.

      In my days as a broadcaster I was quite often invited to go to Ireland to be the commentator for BBC’s outside broadcasts, on both television and radio. In the summer of 1969 I was asked to cover the historic televised inaugural one-day cricket match between Ireland and the West Indies at Sion Mills, a tiny Ulster town in Co. Derry. How historic it turned out to be!

      Tuesday 1st July was the last day of the Lord’s Test and England batted all day, Boycott scoring 106 and Sharpe 86. I was in the Test Match Special team in those days, alongside John Arlott and Brian Johnston, and that evening I went to Heathrow with the West Indies party from St John’s Wood to catch the flight to Belfast. We were met at Aldergrove by a fleet of cars and driven to a hotel in Londonderry where we were to spend the night. After dropping off our bags, we all went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I remember thinking then that it was slightly incongruous being with a collection of cricketers from the Caribbean tucking into sweet and sour pork and fried rice in a Chinese restaurant in the Emerald Isle, having completed a Test Match at Lord’s that very afternoon!

      The following morning, Wednesday 2nd July, dawned cloudless and sunny. Gary Sobers, captain of the touring side, had decided in his wisdom to take a few days off to go racing and Lance Gibbs, the vice-captain, had bowled 41 overs in England’s second innings at Lord’s, so his spinning finger resembled a piece of СКАЧАТЬ