The one thing we've always done well at is putting on a good show so that these foreign ne'er-do-well's can come over here to show us how the game should be played with barely a backward glance towards the dashed hopes and torn up betting slips of an entire nation.Ungrateful bastards...The other thing we do better than anyone else is support.Witness any international sporting event in which a GB team(or it's constituent parts) is participating,especially abroad,and our fans are there in numbers.It's easy to pitch up to support your chosen team when winning but the British fan has been doing so for years of very slim pickings indeed.This takes both dedicated loyalty bordering on the psychotic combined with the masochistic glee of a politician in a gimp mask...All those years of blind faith are now being repaid.And how...
Yesterday's Wimbledon win by Andy Murray finally put to bed the annual counting up of how many years it's been since a male British winner of the event---77 years incidentally,well 1 day now to be precise---Murray has long divided folk on these islands,some see him as dour---A stupid accusation,but even if he is his Tennis certainly is'nt.Top level sport is a serious business.If you want clowns jumping through hoops go watch the circus----He's even being accused by some of not being properly British but only Donald Trump would agree with this ridiculous argument.
A few years ago Murray looked like he may continue the great British tradition of being a talent unencumbered by meaningful titles but something changed about two years ago.That change was hiring Ivan Lendl as coach.Lendl is not known as a man of demonstrative outward signs of emotion but he knows Tennis.His knowledge and calmness are just what Murray needs when things are going badly on the court.The last thing a player needs when looking up to the coach for guidance is someone flapping around like a seagull caught up in a fishing net...
However it's not just Tennis where we're having unprecedented sporting success.Rugby,Athletics,Cricket,Cycling,Golf,Swimming & Boxing have all seen Great British triumphs recently...And boy are we loving it...I'm also pretty sure we're top of the tree in Bog Snorkelling too...
There is of course always some failure and it's a wonderfully British irony that this failure concerns our national game,Football...
Where all the other sports have embraced modern thinking and caught up with the rest of the world our football---England,Scotland,Wales & Northern Ireland---Has lagged behind denying that they have it wrong whilst labouring as pesky foreign teams run rings round us...
Still never mind that,as Brits we should revel in our current sporting prowess because all sports fans know that sporting success is circular and the good times don't last forever...
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