// A Very English of Diseases

4th Jul 2011 12:39:36

Well Well Well, what a weekend. It started off with a mystery illness that progressively grew through to Friday afternoon’s peak, or pique depending how you see things. Either way, at that point Pilot Staff Facebook was logged off and the colourful typing was halted before I made my way to the poorly eye people at the Royal. Good news was I wasn’t going blind well not fully and only temporarily, and it could be cured with a couple of Nurofen and for that matter pretty quickly; what a shame my GP wasn’t on the insightful side of useless when I first went to him with the problem days before.

So with some pretty dilated eyes and the magnificently blurred vision that comes with it, I sat outside the Orange Tree with the little lady and thought, this is good, I’ve left work early and Murray’s on court soon..! If only I could see. Well I bussed it home and my eyes were back in full working order by the time the second set started, I won’t say ironically, because it isn’t, but yeah I missed the best part. Apparently, for that short time Murray looked all that Djokovic managed to be; or maybe if we ignore that short period as anomoly, and that more frequently and more importantly for the remaining three sets last Friday afternoon he just wasn't good enough. But he tried and let’s face it winning hasn’t made him any more popular than Tiger Tim, so maybe if he isn’t to win a Grand Slam then at least losing and playing well like Henman will make him a grannies favourite instead.

So to make up for the previous days closed eye time, I spent Saturday morning reorganising the Havaianas, Vandinis and Wolverines in the back room, this did at least give me time to reflect on the previous day’s flaws and to look forward, albeit tentatively to that evenings heavyweight clash. The mornings quiet reflection passed and I met the little lady in the Orange Tree once again and decided that although I do enjoy the hustle and bustle of the transfer will they/ won’t theys’ of the close season it was nice just to be able to sit down with a pint of guest ale and a plate of nachos without constantly checking my phone to see how many points I’d clocked up for game week 7 per say.

Well we sat down later that day and watched a pretty poor excuse for a contest, I remember there being school discos with people closer together, but maybe it worked in the same way the contact only occurred when no one was watching. But It is with some hesitance that I would call either slayed sportsmen failures, which does unfortunately include the English cricket team too, again losing to Sri Lanka in the short form of the game on Sunday afternoon.

The fact is that Murray isn’t as good as the current top three, and Haye was not as good as Klitschko, a boxer or boxers if you like that have had much derision over the years but still knew how to beat the flamboyant mouth of Haye; it’s just a shame some of that flamboyance didn’t make it to his gloves. The fact is these two are if not great sportsmen sitting on the top of their respective pantheons, they have achieved much in relatively short careers. Haye conquered all at cruiserweight and had to find someone to beat him and Murray is unfortunately in an sport with only one winner, well four big winners but they don’t get shared around too much.

So as with the episode I had with my eyes on Friday afternoon, and the terrible weeks’ worth of feeling woozy and nausea before hand, it turns out just two Nurofen and a couple of hours later I was fine. Unfortunately these two very good sportsmen had their eyes opened with just the same ruthless precision.