The worst (but greatest) game you never saw

One of my favourite quotes of all time is from Sir Richard Turnbull, the penultimate Governor of Aden. He once told Labour politician Denis Healey that,

When the British Empire finally sinks beneath the waves, only two monuments will be left standing: the game of association football, and the expression, "Fuck Off."

Like everyone else they came into contact with, the British had a pop at the Bhutanese, but ended up leaving them alone for political reasons. Maybe that's why football has never been Bhutan's forte. In fact, that is something of an understatement, since they are the lowest ranked national side in the world according to FIFA: 209th of 209.

Bhutan didn't play their first international match until 1982, and as recently as 2000 were beaten 20-0 by the mighty Kuwait. They have won four times in their history (62 matches), against Montserrat, Guam, Tibet and Afghanistan. But this year, for the first time, they’re in the qualifying rounds of the FIFA World Cup. Last Thursday, Bhutan upset all the odds by defeating Sri Lanka 1-0 in Colombo. Their shock victory was even reported in the New York Times.

I was on the same flight as the Sri Lankan national team on Sunday morning, and chatting to a few of the players I realised that the return leg was during my stay. I begged and persuaded Ugyen and Chencho to ditch a few "cultural" activities and take me to the game instead. What, after all, could get me closer to a nation's heart than watching them compete in the biggest football match in their history?

This is only the fourth international match to be played in Bhutan. Schools and government offices are closing early so they can make it to the Changlimithang Stadium, as modest and unusual a ground as you are likely to find.

There's a real buzz around town as we walk to the stadium, two hours before kick off. "This place has a lot of history for our people," Ugyen informs me, as we take our seats, "There are dead bodies under the pitch." Indeed, in 1885 it was the site of the final battle of a Civil War and led to the future King, Ugyen Wangchuck, unifying the country. It doesn’t get much more meaningful than that.

The fervour rises as kick off looms. The players of both teams are greeted with wild cheers and screams. As are, surely a first, the match officials. The grandstand overflows with people, squeezed in like a Guinness Book of Records attempt. There is no health and safety gone mad here, quite the opposite; every gangway has been utilised for extra capacity and the toilets and exits are beyond everyone’s reach. With the gates closed, people are climbing trees and scaling walls to gain a vantage point. Down on the pitch the pre match action is restricted to some guy in a gho kicking footballs at a couple of stray dogs. 

When the game finally gets underway I realise that, in the excitement, I have overlooked the standard of football I was about to witness. Both sides were palpably nervous, and the opening minutes reminded me of my first ever match, as a nine year old; twenty kids running around the park in a pack, chasing after the ball wherever it happened to be.

The pattern was broken spectacularly though after five minutes, when Chencho Gyeltshen, the Ronaldo of Bhutan (he has greasy hair), was sent through and coolly flicked over the initially hesitant, then suddenly over committed, but always badly positioned, Sri Lankan keeper. The reaction was predictably jubilant.

The rest of the first half was diabolical, and things were looking bad for Bhutan as the two guys I sat next to on the plane (the Sri Lankan Ronaldos) carved open the home defence time and again, a bundled in corner eventually drawing them level. Bhutanese Ronaldo attempted to equalise directly from the restart, but like most shots, corners and free kicks, his effort sailed hopelessly wide.

I don't know what went round the dressing room at half time, but it was a different Bhutan that emerged from the break, stretching Sri Lanka's woeful defence with purpose if not proficiency. The Sri Lankan Ronaldos went quiet as the altitude began to take effect.

Bhutan re-took the lead on the hour with a brilliant effort, or so we thought. I might have been the first to notice the linesman's flag and as is so often the case, it was NEVER offside. The officials, from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, must have been drafted from the same lowly end of the pool as the two teams. The ref frequently found himself bodychecking players or having the ball ricochet off him, and wasn't even looking when substitutions were made.

"BhutannumbertwentytwoOFF," the guy behind me had been screaming for most of the match. He had a point, but Bhutannumbertwentytwo got the chance to ram those words back down his throat when put through clean on goal. Twice. His woeful misses would have been funny if I hadn’t struck a sneaky little wager on the outcome. The double goal line clearance at the other end was more enjoyable.

An historic and deserved victory was finally sealed in the ninetieth minute. With Sri Lanka pressing hard for the winner they needed to avoid elimination, Bhutan broke quickly and Chencho kept his cool to slot home a second before being engulfed by his teammates. We fought our way through the crowd, me towering above most of them, some staying to celebrate as others scrambled the walls in scenes reminiscent of Escape to Victory.

Before the match, Bhutan’s captain, Karma Shedrup Tshering, had said the squad were not getting carried away:

Everyone was talking about us being at the bottom but we didn’t feel any pressure because you can only go one way from there, and that’s upwards

I would tend to caution that, from 208th in world, you can go back down as well....

Ashes to Ashes

Quite frankly, it's piss poor. This is supposed to be a travelogue, blog, log, whatever, and yet I have only posted two things in the last month; one saying I need a holiday, and the other that I have decided to do fu*k all for the next however long. As far as retaining what lingering reader interest may have survived the last year's laborious nonsense goes, this must surely be the death knell.

Or is it? Maybe I wasn't sleeping, but waiting. Poised menacingly like a tightly coiled and pissed off cobra, waiting to explode in a fury of travelling, eating, cooking, photographing and writing brilliance the like of which the world had never seen. But no. I've just been watching cricket.

Many years ago I was an angry ant of a teenage England football supporter. Spilling beer, shouting and chanting mildly offensive drivel. Around that time I worked with an absolute gent (who was probably only 25 himself) called Danno, who once confided in me that he would rather see England win the Ashes (Cricket - England v Australia) than the World Cup (Football, Soccer). I smiled politely and secretly worried about him.

It might have been the eight years as a bookie, when my patriotism yielded to fiscal pragmatism, but I ended up wanting England to lose things, football especially. When I stopped being a bookie, I assumed my patriotism would return, but it didn't. And it didn't because in order to be patriotic, you need to feel pride, and eleven cashed up bogans strutting around a football pitch failing to replicate the form they show for their paymasters whilst carrying on the pretence of representing their country provokes anger and resentment, not pride.

Cricket is different though. Test cricket is the quintessence of a sporting contest; endurance, technique, consistency, teamwork, planning and execution. The Ashes, to an Englishman or Australian, are the pinnacle of that most refined of sports. And the Boxing Day test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is the highlight of that.

Two Englishmen, a Frenchman and an Australian....

If you are interested in cricket, you know what happened, if you're not I won't bore you; suffice it to say that we utterly destroyed them. It was very special indeed. So special that, after two days at the MCG I decided to shelve a few plans and spend the first week of 2011 in Sydney watching the final match of the series.

Day 4 at the Sydney Cricket Ground

Five consecutive days of test cricket is an epic thing to watch. Even more so thanks to the demolition of Australian cricket engineered on the field, a rotation of great company in the stands, and the effervescent humour of England's travelling supporters, the Barmy Army.

Nic and I looking smug on the final day at the SCG

By the final day there were no Aussies left, just a large, vocal contingent of English people there to watch the denouement; the final decapitation of the old foe coming just a few minutes before lunch. Amidst the celebrations though, came a slight shuddering twinge. England's victory arrived courtesy of the brilliant execution of a masterful plan; Australia's demise the result of hubris. Greatness never resides long in the same place; those which were great once are small today, and those which were small have become great.

Take me out to the ball game

Baseball. I can't say it's ever done a lot for me, except when multi millionaires were gambling on it, but in the absence of any better ideas, I got myself along to Safeco Field on Saturday night to watch the Seattle Mariners take on the New York Yankees. At least now I know why I couldn't get a hotel in town.

Since half of the world's population owns some form of Yankees apparel, I decide to support the home team. I'd heard before that a ball game is as much about stuffing your face as it is about watching sport. I manage to resist the lure of the $8 hot dogs for the time being, and the endless procession of people selling shit up and down the aisles.

I join about halfway through the second innings, with the scores tantalisingly locked at 0-0. It isn't until the bottom of the sixth that the Mariners actually manage to hit the ball, by which time the Yankees have already powered into a one run lead. I'm beginning to think it would have been more interesting to come down earlier in the day and watch the guys mowing those stripes into the pitch.

With the absence of drama in the middle, it's no wonder they're all so obsessed with statistics. The guy on first base is the first capricorn weighing less than 170lb to make over 50 appearances in a season. And the short stop is making his seventeenth appearance for the Mariners since the last time he ate chicken wings, which is an all time divisional record. When Fan Cam comes on in between the "action" the crowd go absolutely wild. Sitting in the stands with junk food detritus raining down around me, all I can really think of is the brilliant end to The Naked Gun. Strrrr-iiiii-ke.

Halfway through the seventh innings and tradition requires that the whole ground be upstanding as they play "Take me out to the ball game." I was thinking that just "Take me out" would probably do it - I can't even drink myself senseless as it costs $9 for a Bud Light and the guy selling them comes round about as often as the Mariners make contact with the ball.

To my utter astonishment, the game finally comes alive in the eighth innings when, more by luck than judgment, Seattle manage a home run with bases loaded, and so take a 4-1 lead. The whole place goes nuts, and there's a genuine atmosphere at last. When the final roar goes up, I'm almost at the train station.

Bottom of the eighth, bases loaded...surely he'll hit it this time...

Now it seems obvious to me that there are a number of areas in which baseball could be dramatically improved as a sport, and I feel obliged to outline them below:

1. Fielders should not be allowed to use gloves to catch the ball. Not only are gloves for pussies, but it makes it impossible to drop the ball, making batting that much harder.

2. It is too hard to hit the ball, and making contact can only be a matter of luck and not skill. Make either the bat or the ball, or better still both, bigger.

3. They get through hundreds of balls a game. They should use just one, so that it takes on different characteristics as the match progresses.

4. The pitcher has a disproportionate influence on the game. Pitchers should be rotated more often, and each one limited to a certain number of deliveries.

5. The term "Home Run" is misleading. "Boundary" would be both more accurate and appropriate.

6. Having nine innings of just three outs wastes a phenomenal amount of time with teams changing round. Instead, have maybe just two innings, of say ten outs each.

7. The diamond shaped pitch offers no scoring opportunities when the ball is hit behind the batsman. A different shape, oval perhaps, would create greater scoring opportunities and present a more complex and challenging puzzle to the fielding team.

8. They should use a red ball not a white one.

9. Having just a mythical square to aim at makes pitching, and the umpiring of pitching, difficult. Instead, there should have a physical target for the batsman to defend. Three sticks in the ground would suffice.

10. They all look very fetching in their uniforms, but would look a lot smarter if just dressed in white. Assuming, that is, that they were still able to divine which players were on their team.

Polo - hardest game in the world

A couple of years back, in the middle of my efforts to extract myself from my bookmaking business, I made a list of things I was going to do with the time I was buying. I've been working my way through it slowly enough. Some things on it will never happen, like running a marathon. Riding a horse was languishing near the never gonna happen pile too, until Sunday.

My friends Will and Katie have been in town for the last week, and they wanted a polo lesson. I've never ridden a horse before in my life. But worse than this, I am an incurable chicken. I'm afraid of getting on a horse. Why wouldn't I be? I spent eight years watching them race around fields, coldly calculating what they were likely to do, and more often than not watching them do the exact opposite. If you're gambling, you can mitigate these irregularities by choosing when to bet, and how much. If you're sitting on the bastard's back when he changes his mind....well. No thanks. And with a polo mallet in one hand? Don't make me laugh.

The pros make it look easy. Which it is. Not.

Early signs are encouraging. Fernando, our instructor, is 34 and only learnt to ride at 30. We watch some pros practice for a while, then saddle up. Not helped by the 24 hour old hangover that is still lingering around, I haul my sorry ass onto the back of Gran Oso, my mount for the afternoon. Gran Oso, as in Big Bear. After alarmingly brief instruction on how to control a horse, we are walking the length of the field. Old Gran Oso is pretty languid. Big Bear - like Gentle Ben, I guess? The others walk on ahead, Grand Oso and I take things steady. I decide he needs to get on with it, but the whip, my heels, and my Spanish fail to elicit a response.

Team Polo Sport

At the end of the field, we stop for further tuition. We are all calm and still. Katie has handled a horse before, no dramas there. Sabrina too, though she looks a little higher up and her creature keeps eating grass in defiance. I'm not sure about the semantics, but presumably the difference between a pony and a horse is principally one concerning height. Will is a big lad, his mount (pony?) less so. In fact I think he may be scratching the turf with his heels.

Will atop his remarkable shrunken horse

After more walking, Gran Oso and I begin to form a bit of a bond. He's still ignoring the whip though, so old Fernando gives him a few cracks to bring him into a trot. Now I know why it's called a trot. I shit myself with fear. We must be doing all of five miles an hour, but I am convinced he is either going to bolt, rear or maybe I will just crush my balls on the saddle. I yank the reigns and the big bugger slows down in his own time.

Man and beast in perfect harmony

After a brief interval to assess the damage and begin understanding why John Wayne walked the way he did, I remount, polo mallet in hand. Since I was using my right hand to cling on for dear life before, things are now a lot more interesting. Firstly, Gran Oso stops listening to me. The little shit. We are standing, perfectly still, listening to Fernando explaining how to hit the ball (unlikely) when he decides to start reversing. I push his neck. He backs up a little more. Oso, tranquilo.

Fernando is slightly irritated by my interruption. Disculpa. The fucker's off again. He won't stay still. ¡Oso! ¡Para! Left. Right. Doesn't matter. He's just not interested. I study him for a moment. I think he has some kind of skin complaint you know. There are bits of it flaking off his neck, the poor guy. It is round about this time that Sabrina informs me that his name may actually be Granoso and not Gran Oso. Granoso means spotty. But not in a nice sense - as in acne ridden. Great. Not so much Gentle Ben as the spotty little brat who used to feed him.

Katie in 'action'



Sabri looking every inch the professional

Granoso perseveres with the theme of completely ignoring my commands. At one point, he decides we need to pop back to the farm for something, and I reluctantly follow. Fernando implores me to assert my authority but I am completely powerless. The rest of the afternoon passes in a haze of disobedience, punctuated only by my frustrated pleas. ¿Qué pasa? ¡Oso! ¿Qué es tu problema? Every ¡Vamos! and kick of the heel earns the old cold shoulder, and eventually I give up. It later transpires that I have been calling him cabello (the name of my old street - meaning hair) instead of caballo (horse) for most of the afternoon. I can only assume that this is motivating his defiance.

Granoso and I bossing the game from the middle

The 'match' that crowns the afternoon is a laughable affair. Katie has the riding skills but hasn't grasped the rules, so keeps crossing the line of the ball. Will rides rather like you might imagine a gorilla would ride a cat, but his ball skills are good, thanks mainly to the fact that he is only about eighteen inches off the ground. Sabrina can ride, but can't reach the ground, unless her horse has planted himself to it in order to eat more grass, which happens fairly regularly. Old crater face and I are playing a sort of holding role - I hold his reins; he holds me in contempt. We flirt our way around a wide circumference of the action with little purpose, occasionally catching sight of the ball.

Eventually, as the shadows lengthen and the buttock muscles contract, we sidle our way back to the ranch. The horses get hosed down and we sip a cerzeva whilst comparing insect bites, muscle cramps and exaggerating our achievements. I quietly reflect upon another tick beside the list. Next time I think I'll just have horse riding lessons. I'm sure the mallet was the root of the problem - interfering with the primeval signals Gran Oso and I were sending one another. I mean, why confuse the issue? And polo? It doesn't get any more bourgeoise than that does it? Hardly my style at all. Nope. Not my bag. Tried it - yeah, it was fun, with a decent horse, I could have been useful. How long's a marathon these days? Still just the twenty six is it? Oh, go on then, might as well give it a....

Nuestros Caballos

Polo is a big deal in Argentina. A little too late we realised we'd missed the chance to watch a proper polo match as part of a week long celebration of Argentine horses in town. We settled for second best and went to the Nuestros Cabellos show in Palermo to watch some arena polo and remind ourselves what horse shit smells like.

They kept punting the ball out of the arena, and the confined space seemed to severely restrict the movement of the game, not that I know anything about polo. Instead I sneaked off to take some pictures that didn't require four digits of ISO.