Random reminder

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 32

Random reminder

The Thespians The antics of modem sportsmen have become as much a part of the game as the game itself. If there had been an Academy Award for sports acting, one player in a soccer match against New Zealand at Singapore would have got it. He lay on the ground, occasionally leaping off it in agony. Moments later he was playing as if nothing had happened. In rugby, when a player is running in for an easy try, an opposition player will invariably fall over yards away as if he had attempted a tackle. But rugby men are only village drama club members compared with the soccer men. In tennis even the best of them will look at the strings of their, racquets after fluffing easy shots, as if they expected to find gaping holes. The line umpires can be offered as excuses. One fiery Australian professional having lost a point, asked the umpire if

the chalk had 'got in his eyes. The flannelled fools can not find many excuses. The one used most is patting. The batsman has just missed a ball completely, so he carefully pats down the offending turf which of course caused him to miss the ball. Golf excuses would fill a book. The doyen of golf writers, the late Henry Longhurst, had perhaps the best of them. A player in England blamed the roaring of the butterflies in an adjoining meadow for a missed putt, another the ships moving up and down the distant English Channel. Nearer home, a lay in a mixed match kept asking her male opponent to move back on the green. He was requested to move back further and further. In exasperation he asked if she would like him to lay down in the bunker. Why is it that athletes get viruses, while we poor mortals catch colds?