S E T T I N G T H E T O N E F O R H O W T H E G A M E I S P L AY E D • F I T Z D A R E S . C O M • F I F T H E D I T I O N , C H R I S T M A S 2 0 1 6
DIARY The day I won the World Cup – and retired
OSCARS Will Natalie Portman be the Academy’s First Lady?
HISTORY The Native American pioneers of the forward pass
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RACING Willie Carson and Jim Crowley’s training guide
How sport is helping Rwanda bounce back By Jonathan Agnew
he construction of a national cricket stadium in Rwanda, on the site of one of the worst atrocities of recent times, is another illustration of how sport can make a profound impact on people’s lives. There is a nice symmetry that something that gives people such enjoyment will emerge out of an event as hideous as genocide. The original idea that led to the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation’s (RCSF) creation belonged to the late Christopher Shale, who tragically died in 2011. His son Alby has driven the idea towards reality, and he stresses the fact that the project is “not just about bricks and mortar, it is more about the individuals whose lives we are changing”. One such individual is the women’s team captain, Mary Maina. From a cricketing point of view Mary says the project has given “a tremendous hope within the confederation and this means we
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can up our game psychologically”. The effects of the new stadium are clearly more far-reaching than just within Rwandan cricket. “It is bringing job opportunities now with construction,” Mary continues, “then maintenance and cleaning; impacting people’s lives positively.”
You play in any space where a ball can bounce, any space in which you can field, any space you can find The history of the site itself is something we must absolutely respect and is starkly explained by Alby. “In April 1994, on a field in a school in Kigali, 4,000 Rwandans were abandoned by US peacekeepers and attacked by local militia with machetes, grenades and guns. Eight years later, by some strange turn of fate, that same field became Rwanda’s first
cricket pitch.” The situation is comparable to that in Afghanistan, when adversity meant a lot of displaced people moved to Pakistan. Despite never having had any real interest in cricket, they picked up the sport, took it back to their country, and now Afghanistan are a thriving nation playing good cricket. Perhaps through the vision of a father and the work of a son, Rwanda may get there one day as well. It is wonderful the way Rwanda is embracing cricket, and that people here are doing what they can to provide them with a new interest in their lives as they try to recover. People have been incredibly generous in the fundraising, with very highprofile people behind it, including David Cameron, who I saw bowling some terrible pies at Alby in the nets a couple of years ago during Alby’s successful world-record attempt at the longest ever net session. Although that record was beaten shortly afterwards, this paved the way for a
fantastic, just ridiculous, achievement in May this year when Rwandan international captain Eric Dusingizimana spent 51 hours in the nets to take the record back. He then came over to England and, between attending fundraising events, spent some time with the one-day squad. While the record-breaking may have just been some fun, establishing the stadium is serious too and they want it to work. While Mary concedes that it is not hard to play cricket in Rwanda, the current circumstances that she describes hardly seem conducive to help the country’s fastest-growing sport: “There is only one pitch in Kigali, and few resources. You play in any space where a ball can bounce, any space in which you can field, any space you can find.” With the sport growing for both genders, for adults and children, she also points out how the new stadium will allow them to have two games going on at the same time, which is so important as →
02 → “more matches and more practice and the better you will become”. Mary’s ambition is fitting for such a project. When asked of her career highlight so far, she aptly calls upon a competition last year, staged in memory of the 1994 genocide. It’s not a personal triumph but a story of Rwanda’s growth within the East African cricketing world. “We were playing Uganda, and it was very close but we ended up losing by ten runs. The other teams call us ‘baby team’, and after the game they were saying. ‘Baby team can actually do wonders.’ I was proud of my players, proud of the hard work put into it, especially as I am the captain. That game didn’t only open the eyes of the opposition, but it was the talk of the season around the African countries: ‘Watch out for Rwanda, Rwanda is coming!’” Soon the stadium will be available to aid that development of the nation’s cricket – a crowdfunding campaign has netted £100,000, but a further £150,0000 is needed to complete the project. Work continues, though, and phase one (pitch, nets, maintenance building) is due for completion in February/March, while work on phase two (the pavilion) has also begun. The pavilion, which will host a bar, restaurant and free HIV testing facility, is integral to the foundation’s vision of providing a sustainable, self-sufficient facility with social enterprise at its core. Attendees at the grand opening of the facility in late October 2017 are expected to include members of the Royal Family, the Rwandan president, as well as patrons and many family and friends. Several teams are lined up to play in a round-robin tournament over the opening weekend, including Heartaches (Sir Tim Rice’s team), Authors XI, Kenya, Rwanda, and an
England XI captained by Michael Vaughan. While the main aim of the RCSF remains the building of the stadium, other practices of bringing hope through cricket are being undertaken. There is a grant from Comic Relief to be used for promoting social change through cricket, and in partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) the RCSF are taking cricket and coaching to refugee camps as, in Alby’s words, they look to “change the lives and long-term prospects of vulnerable young people in Rwanda through the medium of cricket, and provide a platform from which they can flourish”. It’s such a good story, an uplifting story. It’s now up to everybody in the cricketing world to embrace it and, once it’s up and running, sell the game to the people of Rwanda. The stadium will provide the focal point that Rwanda needs and I’m sure organisations like the MCC will be out
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correspondent and a patron of the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation – www.rcsf.org.uk
Christopher Shale in Rwanda
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there. Part of the reason why these organisations exist these days is to take cricket around the world, so I’m sure it’s a short matter of time until an MCC team goes out to Kigali. Alby is keen to point out that “the RCSF exists due to one man, my old man, a man who gave so much and asked so little. Who came up with an ambitious plan to build a home for cricket in Rwanda and through the essential values of cricket, he wanted to support the rebuilding of communities. It now falls to us to realise his vision.” This is a vision that Mary describes as a “game-changer”, which seems incredibly apt for Rwanda, cricket and sport itself, as the opportunity to provide such hope can be realised. n
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04 SPEAKER’S CORNER Bruce Critchley
GOLF FROM THE SOAPBOX ournament golf has remained largely unchanged for more than 60 years and has become somewhat stale. Every week it’s the same: four rounds of accumulative strokeplay, played from a Thursday to a Sunday. The only change in that time is there is now a tournament (almost) every week bar Christmas, both in America and on the European Tour. Not surprising, then, that many big and respected sponsors – with the possible exception of car manufacturers – have had their fill of golf as the game continues to dance to the same old routine. Partially the thinking behind this set formula is that it enables as many players as possible (usually 150 or thereabouts) to tee up each week and have a chance of making a living. The tours are owned by the players, and events with small, select fields, while perhaps more fun and exciting to watch, do not meet their business needs. Television supports the status quo. All broadcasters like series as opposed to one-offs; 13 or 26 shows week after week are just what programmers want. Golf does more than that. It gives them events every week, and the fact that America is 5-8 hours behind us means all Western golf-playing nations get a double dose all year round. Golf has become glacially slow, but not damagingly so to the TV viewing public. With all the toys at their disposal, broadcasters can give the viewer a steady flow of the game, with shots stacked up like planes lined up to land at Heathrow. For many years now 70 per cent of golf shown on TV has been ‘off tape’. For the home viewer, the product is fast enough. The sport, though, is aware that it needs to change, that it could do with something fresher and quicker. European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley is certainly keen to embrace new formats of the game. “The tradition, the integrity of the game, the 72-hole tournament will always be there in some form, but if you catapult ahead 10 or 15 years the game of golf will be consumed completely differently and there will be different formats that will be successful as content entertainment makers,” he said back in the summer. “People’s time is so precious… I think every golf course being built needs to be six holes, six holes, six holes, so that people can go at the beginning before they go to work.” Golf looks with envy at cricket and sees the rising tide of Twenty20s, but cannot follow; there is no easy short, entertaining alternative. There are, though, forms of the game that could and should be used more often. Without going into all the pros and cons, the whys and wherefores, here’s how golf might change...
1. Four rounds of strokeplay should be retained only for the majors, plus perhaps the World Golf Championships and one or two more select events – the Players Championship, say, and our PGA. They should be like Test matches in cricket – the most important events.
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2. Other tournaments could still start with 156 golfers, but only 16 would make the cut, with the event being completed on a knockout matchplay basis: 18-hole matches morning and afternoon both days. To keep the greater membership happy, this could be extended to include a second tier of qualifiers, making for a second flight of matches – so 32 players could compete over the weekend. 3. Already there is chat about shortened forms of the game, many based on just six holes. Tom Critchley’s Sprint 6 is perhaps the most thought-through and developed, featuring six-hole matches with strict time controls so that no game would take much above an hour – a good 50 per cent quicker than pro golf currently takes. It has a four-day pro tournament format too. Four groups of 10 players would each play one another over the first three days: three games a day, each over six holes, so still only 18 holes a day per player. The top four from each group would then go on to Sunday, and again there would be a classic last 16, with each match still over six holes, the winner and runner-up playing a maximum of 24 holes; nothing too strenuous there. Again, not the full 150 or more players, but we have to broaden the thinking.
Golf has become glacially slow, but not damagingly so to the TV viewing public.
4. Foursomes are an important part of golf, and there could be room for a short series of such a tournament – say, four in a year. Speed of play would be a feature: players walking forward while their partner drives, little conferring, and no round taking longer than 3½ hours, with disqualification if it does. The appeal of all this would be variety, different forms of our great and manyfaceted game getting an airing. With improved speed of play an integral part of other formats, maybe playing quicker might even seep its way into the ever-present four-round medal tournaments. n Bruce Critchley is a Sky Sports golf commentator. Fitzdares encourages all golfers
to download the sprint6golf app.
The Ryder Cup has shown how matchplay can create a sense of theatre and engage the viewing public
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06 Jonny Gould enjoyed some unlikely thrills during his humble career beginnings in 1980s Kenya
I LOVE A PUNT, EVER SINCE MY OLD UNIVERSITY MATE HAD TOLD ME TO BACK HIS HORSE IN THE 1983 GRAND NATIONAL. t was 100/1 at the time. The horse in question was Corbiere. I backed Jenny Pitman to become the first ever female trainer of the National winner from odds of 100/1 down to 13/1; unlucky 13 for some, but not for me. My collection of 50p each-way bets culminated in a fortune for a student, and I was hooked for life on the racing game. Thirty-three years on, like most punters I’ve lost a lot more than I’ve won. But it doesn’t matter, because a love of racing is not just about money won or bets made, but memories created. And in 1985 I had the greatest racing year of my life. I had just left drama school and had launched what was to prove the most spectacularly unsuccessful
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acting career in the history of the profession. I was edited out of the movie Sheena: Queen of the Jungle, which Time Out called “the worst film in cinematography history”. Imagine the shame: I wasn’t good enough for the worst film ever! But I digress. My first acting job took me to Nairobi, Kenya, for a year with the Phoenix Players. I was born in Kenya, and I was beyond excited to return home to spend a year acting, while house-sharing with my oldest brother Simon. The hours with the theatre, though fulfilling, were relentless, and my one and only pleasure was racing every Sunday at the world’s prettiest racetrack: Ngong. What’s more, within a month I was the on-course commentator and the Kenya Times
racing correspondent – only in Africa could a kid (I was 24 at the time) with no experience of commentating or journalism land both roles. The best part of the job was the chance to become an insider looking out rather than a punter looking in. This was best personified by the offer to become a racehorse owner. Over a late-night Tusker beer, Paddy, a regular at the theatre, offered to sell me the leg of a racehorse called Tornado. Now, before you assume I must have been earning a fortune to own a racehorse, know this: the leg cost £200, and I went halves with my big bro. Paddy allowed us to choose the colours and, in return for paying 25 per cent of the training costs, we became fully paid-up members of the
Horse Owners Club at Ngong. We were now on the inside. An out-an-out stayer, Tornado was getting a little long in the tooth. What’s more, there were few races of the appropriate distance for her talents. This became galling when my mum and other brother Jeremy confirmed they were flying out to join us for Christmas. Neither knew that Simon and I owned Tornado’s fastest leg. How cool would it be to escort them into the parade ring before a race – say, at the Boxing Day meet, one of the highlights of the Kenya racing season. There was only one problem – there wasn’t a race even remotely appropriate for Tornado to enter. So what? With the trainer and fellow owners convinced that this was
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an opportunity that couldn’t be missed, Tornado was entered into a race at least a mile shy of her preferred distance. My mum was beside herself with excitement – so much so that she punted £5 each way on Tornado at 25/1. “She hasn’t got a hope, Mum. It’s too short!” I said. But my pleas were ignored. “She’s our horse, darling, and I’m showing her the love!” (Don’t you just love mothers?) The race went as expected – the two front-runners in the market went clear in the home straight. As commentator I struggled to impart my traditional excitement. But then, out of nowhere, a storm was brewing. Tornado, trailed off throughout, started her relentless charge from the back. The race may have already been
won, but the commentator didn’t care. With excitement worthy of a Derby winner, I called my girl home. From last to ninth to eighth to seventh to sixth, she pegged them all back. Even the departing crowd started to cheer. “Come on, Tornado!” my Mum screamed, tears in her eyes. Into the final furlong she raced, fifth, fourth – just one more place to make up. Surely she can’t, not today, there isn’t enough track left… I’ve never seen my mum look happier as she cashed in her 25/1 slip. “I told you she’d do it, darling!” Memories – you can’t buy them. Well, actually, maybe you can. n Jonny Gould is an experienced radio
and TV presenter.
LEGENDARY LOSING STREAKS 5
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Ducks in a row in one Test series – Ajit Agarkar v Australia (2002)
League games without a win – Derby County (2007-08)
134 Consecutive horse races lost by Dona Chepa (Puerto Rico, 2001-09)
54 Number of tennis matches lost in straight sets on the ATP/ITF tours by Robert Dee (2005-08)
28 Consecutive NBA games lost by the Philadelphia 76ers (2015)
653 Consecutive NASCAR races without a win – JD McDuffie (1963-91)
17 years Losing streak in international football (30 games) – American Samoa (ended 2011)
26 years Losing streak in the California Intercollegiate Conference (310 consecutive games) – Caltech (ended 2001)
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31 October 2015 – 9:00am As soon as my alarm goes off I’m out of bed and immediately thinking about the game. It had been a good week’s preparation but there was definitely a palpable tension and immediate excitement that I could feel. We were staying at Pennyhill Park, where I had a room to myself. It’s bizarre, because no matter what the occasion I always sleep well. I like to use the mornings to chill. I always have a coffee, go back to my room to shower, and watch something on Netflix. For some reason, though, I didn’t watch anything that day, which probably means I was a little more nervous than usual. My parents and sister had flown out a week earlier, so being able to chat to them was really nice.
DIARY OF A WORLD CUP FINAL by Dan Carter
11:30am We meet as a team to run through some moves splitting between backs and forwards. The forwards will hit some lineouts and the backs will go through some key moves all at walking pace. This only takes 30 mins and then we go as a team to have our pre-match meal. It’s here the nerves are starting to settle in. It’s an All Blacks tradition to always eat four hours before the game, so at this meal people are going through the motions, taking on food basically for fuel knowing you need it to power the engines. Lunch is always an important meal for me – not necessarily for taste, more out of necessity. It consists of a couple of wraps with chicken, avocado and salad – nothing too heavy.
12:30pm What I like to do after lunch is have a big stretch, 45 minutes of stretching to really limber up – I have the headphones on during this and start to get into the zone a little bit. There’s an optional speed and power work session in the gym, but instead I like to use this time to go through some ankle rehabilitation, whether it be skipping or using the bosu ball – just to make sure the ankles are in working order.
My only real pre-match ritual (along with my coffee) is without fail I will always go back to my room for 45 minutes to an hour to sleep – it sounds strange but I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. I wake up, have a freezing cold shower and put my kit on. After this I’m off to the physio room to get on the foam roller and get my ankles strapped as well as my right knee (I’ve always had a slightly dodgy knee). I’m in game mode now – I know it’s now the moment I’ve worked all my life towards, on the biggest stage, so there were definitely more nerves than usual. For me it’s all about the mind games that come with playing rugby at the highest level. Around this time your head does tend to wonder, thinking about the game, the result, and what might happen. I had been doing a lot of work with psychologists and keeping my focus in the ‘now’ as my mind does tend to drift. So the techniques with ‘now focus’ is just bringing your thoughts back to breathing, being relaxed, and blocking out the noise while concentrating on staying in the ‘now’.
2:00pm
The overriding emotion was just of happiness, whereas four years earlier it had been relief
There are no pre-match speeches from the coaches at this point so we are straight on the bus. The journey is quite long from Pennyhill to Twickenham (about an hour), so you still have a lot of time to yourself. Everyone here is plugged in listening to their music and thinking about their individual battles. I always sit next to Aaron Smith (scrum-half), with Kieran Read (number 8) next to him and Julian Savea (winger) next to me. This is always common practice in the changing rooms as we like to keep our pods together. Once I arrive at the stadium I go out on to the pitch to see if there’s any wind, check whether there’s any dew on the ground, and to visualise myself in certain situations in the match. Because I’m one of the first ones out to do some kicking it doesn’t leave me a huge amount of time, so I’m getting my kit and boots on fairly sharpish. Even though it’s probably the biggest game of my life, my routine is always the same. It is so important to have a routine, the same structure, something you are comfortable with. I always have three warm-up punts, then nine place kicks after that. I have four from the right, four from the left and one straight in front from 40 metres out. This takes me into the team run, which only lasts seven minutes, and then you’re back into the changing room with kick-off not far away.
3:48pm At the two-minute call, this is where the whole team come together. Here the leaders say a few words – in this case Richie McCaw, Kieran and I will always say a few words. In a game like this you don’t need to fire people up, and it might sound odd but you want to focus people’s minds, remind them of their individual tasks, the simple things. In the tunnel you are conscious of the Aussie team next to you but you are trying to stay in your own space, staying as relaxed as possible. I remember the Haka being a little bit more emotional, feeling the energy in the crowd you could sense something different. It was really bizarre, the feelings after the final whistle went. The overriding emotion was just of happiness, whereas four years earlier it had been relief. We were out on the pitch for 45 minutes collecting our trophies and doing various laps of honour. But my favourite part of that night was the two hours in the changing room with just the team, having beers and just celebrating with your best mates. It was a strange feeling – nothing had really sunk in emotionally. We went back to the hotel after those celebrations and I just sat on the end of my bed away from everyone for two hours. It was there that I really started to try to take it all in, realising it was my last ever game for the All Blacks and I had basically finished this amazing career on the highest possible high. Emotionally I was drained. It was so strange not wanting to be around anyone – my parents and sister were at Pennyhill but they couldn’t get hold of me. I literally turned my phone off and sat there in silence. The joy, happiness, and emotions in that moment were hard to control. My rugby dreams had come true that night, and it’s something that will stay with me for ever. n Dan Carter won 112 caps for New Zealand and was named the IRB World Dan Carter at the 2015 Rugby World Cup
Rugby Player of the Year three times.
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STROKES OF LUCK Despite a lack of skill, gambler extraordinaire Lewis Deyong cunningly outsmarts the local sharks A few years ago I became interested in playing golf and took a couple of lessons from the pro of the tiny Biot Golf Club near Antibes. Unfortunately, my swing was atrocious. As a lifelong tennis player, I couldn’t prevent the shaft from following through parallel to the ground and was constantly shifting my feet in the middle of the stroke, choking up on the club and trying to turn the shot into some sort of topspin backhand – with conspicuous lack of success. I do have a reasonable eye and would generally connect, but the ball rarely left the ground except to shoot off into the woods, which were cunningly planted behind midwicket. Another big problem was learning to play right-handed. It was carefully explained that left-handers (which I am at tennis) have a big advantage playing golf right-handed and I should definitely start off that way. I was a bit dubious but listened to the pro. We soon discovered that I could throw the ball considerably further left-handed then I could hit it righthanded. Nevertheless, one day I decided to attempt the course and set off with a rented set of ancient Walter Hagen clubs carried by a lady caddie (called a cadette in France). I had intended to keep score but gave that up very soon. My last hole was the fourth, where it is necessary to carry a deep and nasty-looking ditch 50 yards ahead of the tee, which is sited in front of the clubhouse. To the sniggers of the assembled golfers, I deposited four balls, a driver and finally an 8-iron in the ditch before quitting for the morning. The next
day the lessons began again – this time left-handed! The lefthanded swing felt a bit more natural and I did manage to lift a few irons out about 120 yards. As I came off feeling like Jack Nicklaus, I was approached by a total stranger who had been watching me. His name was Marius Bardenas, and Marius had evidently seen me at the Monte Carlo Casino a few nights before. He loved to gamble himself. Did I like to bet at golf too? “You not play too bad with zee left clubs. I give big pointure [handicap], you know.” “How big a handicap?” I asked out of curiosity. “I give you 60 strokes,” he shot back. “Matchplay.” Do I need to describe my swing any further? However, the lure of the 60 strokes was overwhelming: a colossal 60 shots… my pride… $500 on the match… How could I resist?
I was about to accept when Marius offered me a final inducement: “I also let you use the ladies’ tee,” he added as a joke. Very sporting of him – an extra 15 yards! The bet was on. The next day I found out that my opponent had won both the French and Italian amateur championships. We played two days later, and Marius turned up accompanied by a charming friend named Henri, with a perpetual gleaming smile pasted to his round face. Guess what? The friend was a golfer too. He had won the French amateur about 14 times, and not surprisingly he wanted some action. I was getting just a little bit windy by this time, seeing them stand-
ing in line to play me! There is a French phrase, “too polite to be honest”, which described his manner perfectly. I asked this Henri de Lamaze to give me 66 strokes, and he instantly agreed.
What had I done? At the first tee I began to find out, and one of golf’s greatest farces got under way. The first hole was a 240-yard par four, and the opposition had both made the green in one when my turn came. As a precaution I had put both left- and right-handed clubs into my bag – six or seven of each. I asked for the 2-iron and was given a left-handed putter. All of a sudden my cadette (she turned out to be the petite amie of Marius) no longer understood my French, not that the proper club made much difference anyway. After a readjustment, I addressed the ball and sent a drive screaming past square leg. I was immediately informed of a local out-of-bounds rule and had to take a one-stroke penalty. A bit unnerved, I now tried a 5-iron, which I hoped would be a safe club. Alas for safety. While my head was jerking up to follow the flight, the club spitefully opened up a small crater two feet behind the ball. I followed with another blast (this time from the driver) and the ball dribbled 20 feet into the rough. Impossible. I conceded the hole and picked up. The second hole is a 100 yard 9-iron (all the courses in the south of France are short, and Biot is the flattest and shortest) on to a small green surrounded by trees. Here I tried to disprove the theory that trees are 90 per cent air. I played a sort
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of woodland ping pong for six or seven shots before finally picking up again. My two opponents both three-putted from about 12 feet and explained profusely how easily I could have won the hole with just one good shot. I had been very unlucky, they said. Henri’s smile grew wider than ever. The fourth hole, by the clubhouse, was my special nemesis. Trying as ever to be helpful, Henri and Marius were very solicitous on the tee, pointing out how careful I should be to avoid the huge facing ditch – which naturally attracted my first three balls like iron filings drawn to a magnet. Of course, the two champions casually lofted beautiful drives on to the green and putted out for routine pars.
My impatience was mounting at every hole and I categorically forbade my cadette to waste time looking for lost balls. I was steaming. In depression I switched on the fifth to a right-handed club and let fly. To my astonishment, I hit the ball in the middle of the face and off it went, rolling about 120 yards along the fairway. Watching my ball bounce, I had sudden inspiration. The course at Biot is dead flat and, as noted, maybe only 5,000
yards. The only problems are posed by the narrow fairways and, naturally, the out-of-bounds rule. The Riviera August sun had baked the ground as hard as iron, and a solidly hot ball would bounce forever. If I took a short, stiff-armed jab at the ball, it would roll between 100 and 125 yards per shot and I would arrive on most greens, which left me net two or three, allowing for a 60-66 stroke handicap. So for the rest of the match I used only the right-handed putter and I sent packing my cadette (aka Mata Hari). At first my two new friends were highly amused, but after losing a couple of par fours (three shots in the fairway, three on the green, left me net three) they realised that I had suddenly discovered a realistic game plan. Panic began to set in. Henri would blast out a dead straight 250-yarder and then watch me. “This is not ze golf,” he moaned waving his arms as I teed off with my putter, the hole 300 yards away. I played the last 12 holes with the same ball. It never travelled far enough to go out of sight. I abandoned the idea of slugging it out against Marius and Henri, and by ignoring par I was able to relax and even kept my head down.
As I edged back into contention, we had some interesting rulings on the course. It seemed Marius had the right to move a ball that landed behind a bare patch on the green. A depression in the ground was deemed an unnatural hazard, entitling Henri (his smile contracting by the minute) to a free drop. The out-of-bounds rule progressively narrowed the fairways still further as we went on, but nothing helped them. My ball just bounced and rolled along those granite fairways and I usually managed to play greens with enough strength to get down in three putts. At the 16th, Henri de Lamaze was beaten 3&2. Marius and I arrived all square at the 18th, a hole I had never seen before. Suddenly he was happy again, and I soon saw why. How was I
to putt off the tee through the three small drainage ditches which fronted the green? I searched for a way out. Waste one stroke and go at right angles around the ditches? Impossible: out of bounds. Go back to a 9-iron? Too risky. All at once the problem solved itself. Twenty yards forward of the ditches stood the ladies’ tee. Claiming my bisque, I calmly walked past all the trouble. This 20-yard advantage, meaningless to a proper golfer, made all the difference to me and I scrambled home with seven (net three) to win the last by one stroke. Marius seemed a little upset at losing to me after shooting 67, and I think the fatal 20 yards on the last hole bothered him most of all. We walked silently to the clubhouse, where I offered the traditional glass of champagne preparatory to leaving. Desperately, Henri said: “I don’t go back to Cap Ferrat [where he lived] for two hours. I propose you a little gin rummy Hollywood, 1, 1 and 2 francs le point.” That 1, 1 and 2 francs may sound small, but it represented 20, 20 and 40p per point, which was a pretty stiff game at that time, and for sure Henri would turn out to be an ace card player, which I certainly was (and am) not. “Love it,” I replied. “One hour of gin and then one hour of backgammon at £100 a point.” By the end of that, the last traces of the pasted smile collapsed. They were beaten. Out of every pocket, out of every flap of their expensive golf bags, came little piles of wrinkled old 1,000 and 5,000 franc notes – the picture of Richelieu squinting in the unaccustomed light. Finally the grubby stack was ready. “Monsieur,” said Henri. “You a very clever person, you a very good gambler, you must be ze worst golfer what I ever saw in my life.” A parting accolade from Henri Viscount de Lamaze, a sportsman. The whole experience put me off golf for about 30 years. Although my game has marginally improved since, I must confess that secretly, I still miss the days when my handicap was a solid 66. n
C O S T LY M A J O R W I N N E R S Keegan Bradley was a 150/1 shot when he won the 2011 US PGA Championship. A Fitzdares member’s £150 each-way bet earned him a tidy return of £28,425. Little-known Lucas Glover won the 2009 US Open at odds of 200/1. We’d only laid one bet on him – but it was a £125,000 winner from a £500 each-way bet. £200 on Angel Cabrera at 150/1 ruined what should have been a great 2007 US Open.
AND ONE SAVIOUR... Tiger Woods saved us £275,000 by winning the 2008 US Open – playing on one leg! – after a member had staked £15,000 at 5/1 and £50,000 at 9/2 on him winning no majors that year.
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GAGA FOR LA LA Last year Joe Hodgson absolutely nailed his Oscars predictions. Can he repeat that performance? not, as I had previously thought, racing driver Jackie Stewart), Emma Stone for that La La Land film I’m always banging on about, newcomer Ruth Negga for race drama Loving, and Amy Adams for sci-fi film Arrival (in which she plays a linguist enlisted by the US Army to try to communicate with some recently landed space aliens – all of whom sound exactly like Jamie Carragher).
OSCARSODDS
A
fter a year of celebrity deaths, divisive political upheaval, and the profound trauma of a television programme about baking cakes being moved to a different channel, we can finally begin talking about the really important stuff. That’s right, the Oscars. Although many people see Awards Season as an indulgent procession of wealthy, good-looking stars giving each other golden statues, that’s not a very accurate assessment. Because some wealthy, good-looking stars don’t receive golden statues. And is Lily Allen on hand to help raise awareness of their struggles? No, she is not. But enough talk of pathetic losers, let’s focus on the winners for a change. For it is they whose aftershave we want to buy, whose coffee we want to drink, and whose faces we want tattooed crudely on our necks.
The largest portion of ‘Oscar Buzz’
is currently being devoured by Damien Chazelle’s La La Land – a movie about the fathomless wonders of the movie industry, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Aside from divorce, plastic surgery and expensive rehab, there’s nothing Hollywood likes more than movies that set out to mythologise Hollywood. And in Argo and The Artist this decade has
Natalie Portman (Jackie) is a contender to prevent La La Land’s domination of the Oscars
There’s nothing Hollywood likes more than movies that set out to mythologise Hollywood
already provided us with two Best Picture winners extolling the craft of film-making. So is there really room for another? Of course there is! This is Hollywood – they’re probably working on a sequel, prequel and a multiparted spin-off threequel as you read these very words. The only problem La La Land faces is that it’s already a huge favourite to win Best Picture and, other than not being nominated at all, peaking prematurely is the next biggest concern for a hopeful, sweaty-palmed young movie. Who, then, is in position to make a late dash for glory should La La Land begin to wilt... or even Devon Loch it? The candidates at the moment would appear to be: as-yet-unseen Martin Scorsese missionary epic Silence, stage-play adaptation Fences, and relationship drama Manchester by the Sea. (Why didn’t they just call it Blackpool, I wonder?) But the movie I am hereby tipping to seriously challenge the favourite come Oscars Night is Moonlight. I believe academy voters, keen to avoid another #OscarsSoWhite sideshow, will look to garland Moonlight and its revealing depiction of homosexuality in an AfricanAmerican community. It has also received spectacularly good reviews so
BEST PICTURE La La Land Evens Loving 6/1 Fences 6/1 BEST DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle (La La Land) 5/6 Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) 5/2 Denzel Washington (Fences) 10/1 BEST ACTOR Denzel Washington (Fences) Evens Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) 6/4 Ryan Gosling (La La Land) 6/1 BEST ACTRESS Emma Stone (La La Land) 13/8 Natalie Portman (Jackie) 2/1 Annette Bening (20th Century Women) 3/1
far – which always helps – unlike the once hotly tipped slavery picture The Birth of a Nation, whose momentum has nosedived following a lukewarm reception tagged to its very own unpleasant and distracting sideshow surrounding the director/lead actor’s student days. There appears to be plenty of room for movement and potential late surges in the acting categories at the moment too. The likely Best Actress nominees consist of Natalie Portman for the biopic Jackie (where she plays former First Lady Jackie Onassis and
The Best Actor category is similarly difficult to interpret this year. Casey Affleck seems to have a slight lead as it stands, for his turn in Manchester by the Sea, but there will be stern competition from Denzel Washington (Fences), Tom Hanks (Sully), and Joel Edgerton (Loving). Perhaps the biggest threat to Affleck the Younger will come from former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield (Silence). I was initially sceptical that a man of such youthful appearance could grow the kind of beard required to portray a 17th-century Jesuit priest effectively. But I’ve now seen the pictures and can confirm that Garfield has achieved full Brian Blessed – on the beard front, hopefully not the acting front – so I’d say his chances of glory are, like Flash Gordon, very much alive. The Best Supporting Actor/Actress
categories find themselves in an even bigger state of flux than the leading role awards. Viola Davis is trying to convince people that her co-lead in Fences is actually a supporting role, which, if she is successful, would boost her chances of bagging a gong in February. And if my predicted surge for Moonlight occurs, don’t be surprised if we see Britain’s Naomie Harris bouncing excitedly down the red carpet too. Moonlight momentum could also see her co-star Mahershala Ali becoming a much more familiar and pronounceable name in the Best Supporting Actor contest. It’s an unusually open, exciting field on paper, then, as we head towards the most intense and challenging stage of the campaigning process – a time when the abilities of an actor or actress will be most severely tested. Studio bigwigs across Hollywood will be hoping there are no skeletons lurking in the closets of their chosen nominees (or, if there are any skeletons, that they’re decomposed and largely unidentifiable). But the big question remains: will everyone still be gaga for La La come the big day? n Joe Hodgson is a writer who blogs at www.fitzdares.com and tweets @fitzdares
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16
HEIRS TO Racehorse trainers need a broad range of skills to succeed — as well as great stamina and an understanding 1. Describe the perfect owner. Dan Skelton The best owners have patience – patience and a desire to see each horse achieve the most with its given ability. Jamie Snowden A six-foot blonde with a good sense of humour! A huge passion for Natoinal Hunt racing, a yearning desire to be champion owner and a bank balance to match! Ben Pauling Someone who takes a keen interest, cares about the horse’s best interests and listens to advice given by the trainer. Harry Fry Definitely patience. Inevitably with horses there are always last-minute changes – to where we might run it, the going/ground, and the trip. Not all horses are going to be superstars so they need to have a good resolve too, to keep trying and plugging away – a real unwavering love for horses!
2. “Training horses? It’s easy isn’t it. Run them up a hill and feed them some hay.” We know the reality is different. How hard is it to juggle everything, and what attributes do you need to succeed? Dan The ability to delegate is key. I have a great staff around me
– head lass, head lad, work riders and of course the jockeys. You have to trust them all to do their individual jobs well, and manage them when needed. Jamie Very tricky: good planning and communication, a reliable team, a slick routine, matching the type of horse to the type of gallop, an understanding wife, and children small enough that they don’t notice – yet! Attributes to succeed are patience, horsemanship, dedication, communication skills and thick skin. Ben Those who say training racehorses is a tough lifestyle should give up. We only do it because we have a huge passion for it and we wouldn’t be without it. It throws many hard days and sleepless nights at you, all while trying to make as much time as you can for your family. But when you sum it all up and the good days make up for all the bad days, I think we are lucky to be able to do something we love. Harry It’s certainly a full-time job. As well as being a fantastic way of life, being outdoors, and meeting so many different people from all walks of life, it’s exciting. Running a full-time business is demanding – if the business doesn’t work we can’t pay the wages, pay the fees, and ultimately train racehorses. It’s a results-driven business and you’re
only ever as good as your last result, and what comes with that is the PR and advertising. Juggling family life can be tricky as I have a two-year-old daughter, Ruby, so time spent with her is precious, but she does now find herself on the gallops most mornings, which is great to see. It is very much a family business. You need absolute focus and determination. Horses don’t know if it’s a Sunday or Boxing Day, and owners are in the entertainment business. They want to be able to speak to trainers, find out plans at the end of their working day, or on a Sunday, so as a trainer you always have to be contactable.
3. If you were beaten by a neck in the Gold Cup because the ‘winning’ jockey broke the whip rules but your pilot respected them, how would you feel? Dan If the horse and jockey have done their best, then that’s all that can be done. The rules are open to interpretation as they stand, so it’s up to trainer and jockey to interpret them until they change. Jamie Obviously, you would be gutted to be beaten a neck in the Gold Cup full stop. However, if the winner broke the rules you would be enormously aggrieved. It is tricky, as if the boot was on the other foot you would be delighted with your jockey!
Jamie Brendan Powell winning on Present View at the Cheltenham Festival in 2014. He was outpaced early on but crept into contention down the back courtesy of some fantastic leaps, and he kicked down the hill and stole a few lengths. Having filled him up turning for home, he pinged the last and went on to win by the shortest of margins. A very astute ride from a young jockey. Ben When Nico de Boinville won on Newton Geronimo at Taunton. He had previously twice refused to race the last and Nico realised at the start that the horse panics in tight spaces, so he dropped him out to the back of the pack. He managed to get him away safely at the back of the 16-runner field, then picked them off slowly to produce him at the last two jumps in full flight and won a shade cosy without hitting the horse. Harry Noel Fehily on Unowhatimeanharry in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham last year. The horse had had a fantastic season, but still riding at Cheltenham in such a big field is never easy. At the top of the hill he still had it all to do – the leading horses went on, but Noel didn’t panic and kept him in contention coming down the hill, and thankfully we were close enough at the bottom when it mattered. As far as days go, that will stay with me for ever.
Ben Pretty distraught, but I’m not sure it would ever happen. No matter what the rules say, in a race of that calibre jockeys don’t leave anything on the track, they’re hard as nails when required. Harry I would be pretty devastated. If a jockey breaks any other rule they get demoted. The only rule they can break and keep their position is the whip rule, so I believe it still needs looking at. On the flip side, if we won the race, I don’t know how I would feel.
4.
Describe the best ride a jockey has given one of your horses.
Jamie Snowden
Dan There have been so many I’m not sure I can select one. Any winning ride is a great ride!
Harry Fry
5.
Now that you’re your own boss, who do you call for advice?
Dan I get all the advice I need from my dad and my wife: Dad for the horses and the missus for everything else. Jamie I still speak to Nicky Henderson and his head lad (Corky Brown) regularly, but ultimately we have such a good team here I usually rely on them. Ben I don’t specifically call on anyone in particular for advice but am always listening to what other trainers think and do to pick up as much experience as I can. Harry My wife Ciara. We work very closely together and have done since we started, and I couldn’t imagine doing it without her. My landlord as well, Richard Barber, who was a very successful point-to-point trainer – he’s on the gallops every day with us and I like to call him a wise old soul.
6. How do you manage the stress of the job? Dan At the end of the day I’ve chosen to compete at the top of this game so I’ve got to deal with it. Any job is stressful; anyone can have a bad day. Thankfully things have gone well for us, but when things go badly I always think, “Tomorrow is another day.”
17
THE THRONE family. We asked four of the best rising young trainers how they approach the challenge Jamie Having friends around for a good dinner around the kitchen table with a few bottles of wine tends to help. Or a round of golf, or a trip to the Emirates to see Arsenal play. Ben I play football a lot to relieve myself from stress. I find it helps me forget about the yard for a while – I’m too competitive to think about anything else. My family are also great to go home to – my daughter couldn’t be any happier and that makes me remember the important things. Harry I love cycling in the summer – I’m a fair-weather cyclist. The evenings in the winter don’t really allow it. Spending time with my daughter is something I enjoy. To be able to slip into their world for half an hour is a great way to relax.
7.
Do you have any superstitions in your racing life?
Dan No. Jamie My daily superstition is that I always salute magpies! Racing superstitions – I always tread on new colours. Ben I used to have certain lucky ties and unlucky ones, but I’ve worn them so much that I’ve realised the tie doesn’t really have much affect at all!
Harry There are definitely certain ties that I wear on race day and certain ties that I stay away from. I’m most superstitious about where I watch races from. If I have success in a certain spot at a racecourse you’ll find me there, and if not I’m shuffling around trying to find a luckier spot.
8.
A client comes to you with a £1m budget and wants to win the Gold Cup or Grand National. Choose your race and tell us your precise strategy, including how you buy the horse.
Dan If it was the Grand National I would look for a horse with some form – either from France or the point-to-point scene. You’d look for a horse with size and scope – if you could get a horse like that past the vet, that would be a great start. To win a Gold Cup or Grand National you need a good slice of luck finding the horse – look at all the champions Willie Mullins has trained, and he’s never had a Gold Cup winner. Jamie In this day and age you almost need a Gold Cup-quality horse to win the Grand National, so my buying technique would be the same: I’d buy five horses, use the rest on the training fees and save some for the party afterwards! Two proven young winning horses with huge potential (French, Irish pointers, or English)
bought privately straight after they’ve won. And three store horses with staying pedigrees from the sales – horses that have size and scope and are conformationally correct. After novice hurdles, they’d win the RSA in their novice chasing days, then the Hennessey, before the Grade 2 chase at Cheltenham in January before heading to the Gold Cup... and Grand National! Ben I’ll go for the Gold Cup. I would more than likely go to Ireland to a few very smart producers and see what they had. With a million in the bank you could buy six proper horses and go from there. I’d run them in a bumper or two until they know their job and then go novice hurdling, then novice chasing before they hit the big time. I’d always keep the horse to its minimum trip for as long as I could – horses have to run over extended trips a lot more as older horses, and the fewer gruelling tests they have the better. Harry It would have to be the Gold Cup, the blue riband of our sport. I’d look at the novice chase form and buy what I thought was the best novice staying horse from the previous season. In terms of training, they really need to stay the Gold Cup trip. It’s a relentless gallop and they have to really stay. At the same time they have to have a bit of speed and class about them. Ideally what you want is a Kauto Star Mk II (a Grade 1 winning twomiler that can stay as well).
owners and staff is as good as it gets – you wouldn’t be in this job if it was about the money. Ben There are many ways to skin a cat and you sometimes have to be able to adapt. We quite often take a few risks like this, but you wouldn’t want every horse in the yard on this basis. We rely on training fees to provide for our families and making the business work has to be paramount. Harry I suppose what one could do is charge less for training fees and then take a larger percentage of prize money. Obviously if this were to happen you’d have to work that out with every owner, which wouldn’t be easy. Obviously here we have our set training fee and with the rules of racing the trainers get a certain percentage of the prize money, so that is very much the norm and something we won’t be looking to change any time soon.
10.
Out of every young trainer in the country, who would you send your horses to and why? Dan Me! No, OK, Harry Fry is a great friend and trainer. He always brings his horses on well and doesn’t run them too much. Jamie Harry Snowden. He’s only three but he’s already a racing nut and will be a mighty trainer when
9.
Hedge funds charge a small management fee but take a big slug of profits. Would you ever do the same?
Dan Your personnel are key to the success. Imagine if we have a bout of flu or an extended cold snap in January – I couldn’t risk not being able to pay their wages.
Ben Pauling
Jamie Every business needs to make a profit, but ultimately this game is a hobby and passion for all involved. Owners put a huge amount of money into the game and deserve to get as much out of it as possible. Sharing in the enjoyment of the great times with
Dan Skelton
he’s older, given how involved he is already! Ben Ian Jardine. I’ve been very impressed with how he’s gone about making a name for himself over both flat and jumps. Harry Dan Skelton. I spent four great years working with him under Paul Nicholls. The progress he has made speaks for itself. Incidentally, we had our first Cheltenham festival winners half an hour apart from one another. You couldn’t have scripted that – he won the County Hurdle and then we won the Albert Bartlett. He’s doing brilliantly well and we spur each other on. n
RISIN GSTARS To win the Gold Cup within the next 10 years Dan Skelton 10/1 Harry Fry 12/1 Jamie Snowden 16/1 Ben Pauling 18/1 Race to be Champion Trainer within the next 10 years No one 5/6 Dan Skelton 2/1 Harry Fry 5/1 Ben Pauling 16/1 Jamie Snowden 33/1 Most Festival Winners within the next 10 years Dan Skelton 4/5 Harry Fry 2/1 Ben Pauling 5/1 Jamie Snowden 12/1
18
THROWING NATIVE The Carlisle Indians ensured American football was no passing fad. Sally Jenkins charts their ascent
T
he development of American football closely parallels that of the country in which it was born – both were bastardised, rebellious, rulebreaking things that jumped up out of a wilderness. Take the forward pass, which in a remarkable coincidence came along in 1906-07, precisely the same time that mechanised flights were taking off. The airborne game, which so separates the Yank version of football from its rugby forebear, was the singular innovation of the most American of all teams, the Carlisle Indians. The Carlisle Indians were real Indians, who played football in America at the turn of the century as an exercise in resistance and the refusal to be moved out of the way. And if early American football was about anything, it was about moving people out of the way. Harvard University coach Cameron Forbes, a grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, called football “the ultimate expression of Anglo-Saxon superiority”.
As the 19th century drew to a close, the American Civil War was over and the frontier was conquered. Young American men, fearful of becoming over-civilised in parlours now that the primeval forest was subdued, became obsessed with this brute territorial game in which the scions of the most prominent families at Harvard, Princeton and Yale could test their physiques and fitness for power by mowing each other down in wedges. But in 1907 a small boarding institution named the Carlisle Indian Industrial School intruded on the narrative. Carlisle played a game of higher stakes: for them, football was a chance to earn respect in white society, and to burst racial stereotypes. In their hands, football was not an exercise of raw power, but an exploration in how to subvert it. With a series of trick plays, they reshaped the game from one of pure force into an experiment in “the human capacity to withstand violence and create something
beautiful despite it, or even from it”, in the words of Michael Oriard, a historian at Oregon State University who wrote Reading Football, a cultural history of the game. Carlisle had been founded in 1879 by a former cavalry officer, Richard Henry Pratt, to forcibly acculturate American Indians. Children and grandchildren of combatants in the Plains Wars were shipped east to the boarding school in Pennsylvania, where they were systematically anglicised under Pratt’s motto, “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”. Their braids were cut off, they were baptised with Christian names, forbidden to speak their native languages, and taught conventional trades, and farming. “I believe in immersing Indians in our civilisation and holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked,” Pratt said. They were also taught anglicised sports. Initially, these were purely calisthenics to
19 keep the students out of the infirmary, where many of them ended up due to unhealthy diet and conditions at the school. But in the mid-1890s a group of male cadets persuaded Pratt to allow them to play football, and after some preliminaries they began to take on the Ivy League teams. They saw these games as opportunities to redress old wrongs and exact a measure of revenge on the world that had destroyed theirs. The Carlisle players believed that conflicts between whites and Indians “had never been waged on equal terms”, their coach Glenn “Pop” Warner recalled. Initially, the Carlisle Indians were viewed as a curiosity on the level of a Wild West show. But by the turn of the century they had become a competitive fixture in collegiate football, thanks to the coaching of Warner, a nascent young genius and a social outsider who found his niche at Carlisle. The Indians were underweight and undermanned against the hulking, rugbystyle power plays of the Ivy League. But instead of trying to plough through them, the Indians went around them. By necessity they became masters of misdirection. Warner understood this and designed a series of hide-the-ball plays designed to emphasise speed and deception over power. The meeting of minds between Warner and the Indians reached a peak in 1907, when Carlisle became the first team to establish the option as well as the passing game – and essentially invented the modern game you see today. The innovations came just in time to rescue early American football from boredom and abolition. The game was so brutal that it caused 18 deaths and 149 serious injuries on the field in 1905, provoking a movement to exile it from college campuses. President Theodore Roosevelt, whose own son had been injured in a Harvard game, called officials from the Ivy schools together to discuss reform. The result was a series of rule changes calculated to make the game safer and more “open” by broadening the field of play, including legalisation of the forward pass. It seemed the whole world was going airborne. The Wright brothers experimented with how to keep their heavy, gas-driven winged machine aloft, while in France, a Paris-born Englishman named Henri Farman performed the first banked turn in a plane and flew in a full circle. Most coaches considered the pass an unsound experiment – players tended to handle the ball awkwardly, lobbing it underhanded, or end over end. The Indians threw differently, however. They had been toying with forward passes for years purely in fun, and by 1907 one of them, a Cheyenne named Pete Hauser, was adept at grasping the ball by the laces and throwing spirals. As Warner watched his team in practice, he realised he had a new weapon, and it fired his creative imagination. He designed a new formation called the single wing, and created options out of it in which a quarterback rolled out sideways to buy time while receivers streaked downfield. “How they did take to it,” he remembered. “Light on their feet as
where receivers made balletic leaps to grasp the ball with their fingertips. Carlisle beat Penn 26-6, with the Indians completing eight of 16 passes. They amassed 402 yards of offense – an impressive figure in any era but a gargantuan one for the time. By way of comparison, Penn gained just 76 yards.
professional dancers, and every one amazingly skilful with his hands…” In particular, Hauser was a triple threat who could run, kick, or throw, and “hit his ends on the dead run with uncanny accuracy”, Warner recalled. At first Carlisle’s new offense went relatively unnoticed. But on 26 October 1907 it burst into the national consciousness when Carlisle played the fourth-ranked University of Pennsylvania. On just the second play of the game, Hauser hit an end named William Gardner with a 40-yard bullet across the middle of the field. Up until that moment, if teams threw at all, they were short, wobbling passes. This was different – a stunning new vision that spatially altered the field. It was “no such puny pass as Penn makes, but a lordly throw, a hurl that went farther than many a kick”, the Philadelphia North American reported. Imagine how it must have struck Victorian audiences, who had only seen clumsy power football. Now the ball traced a neat, tight, spiralling arc through the air. Suddenly the game seemed to levitate – players lifted out of the mud to mid-air,
From then on, teams didn’t know where to look. Carlisle would use the pass “on any down and in any emergency – and it was seldom that they did not make something with it”, according to one newspaper. Their tactics so discomfited the traditional powers that sometimes things turned nasty. At one point during an unbeaten streak, Hauser limped off the field and reported that he had been kneed. “What did you do?” Warner asked. “Didn’t you say anything to him?” “Sure I did,” Hauser said. “I said, ‘Who’s the savage now?’” The peak of the season came against their arch-nemesis, Harvard. Carlisle had played Harvard ten previous times, often closely, but had never won. They were alternately admiring and envious of the Crimson, who were their ideals of excellence. When anything was done to perfection, the Indians said it was done “Harvard-style”. But this time, the game would be played pure Carlisle-style: it wasn’t seven minutes old when Carlisle completed a 45-yard pass. They scored three times, each set up with a marvellous piece of misdirection – runners would fake around end and then pull up short and throw back across the field, until Harvard’s defenders were turning in circles. The final score was 23-15, and Harvard was so frustrated that angry fans stormed the field and a Crimson player was ejected for punching Carlisle’s Albert Exendine in the jaw from behind.
From Boston to New York, Carlisle’s victory over Harvard was front-page news. “Crimson Hopelessly Baffled by Indian Tactics,” one headline read. A team of Indians had beaten Harvard to shatter racial stereotypes. But that was just part of the story. The Indians were not only hailed as the equals of the college boys; they were dubbed “Masters of the New Football”. They had invented a whole new brand of game, a game of the future, and the traditional powers were clinging to their old tactics at perils of extinction. n Sally Jenkins is a sports columnist for The Washington Post and the author of The Real All Americans, a book on the Carlisle Indians.
NFLODDITIES American cows have a 1 in 17,420,000 chance of becoming an NFL football in the Super Bowl. Deion Sanders is the the only person to play in the World Series and the Super Bowl, and is the only person to both hit an MLB home run and score an NFL touchdown in the same week. Approximately 80% of Super Bowl tickets go to corporate sponsors. NFL cheerleaders typically make $75 a game. On Super Bowl Sunday Americans eat an incredible 8 million pounds of guacamole. Las Vegas sportsbooks took $132.5m on the Super Bowl this year vs. $94.5m in 2006 and $70.9m in 1996. It is estimated that Nevada only pulls 2.5% of the action, meaning the global total was close to $5.3bn.
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COMING IN2017 Fitzdares’ highly personalised adaptive app that learns as you bet…
We are delighted to announce the launch of our new mobile betting app, coming in early 2017. Built in-house with our members in mind, it will have some unique features.
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As every individual likes betting on different sports, we have designed an adaptive app which learns the sports and markets you like betting on. No more sifting past a dead rubber of Peter Ebdon vs. Fergal O’Brien, when you’ve never had a bet on snooker in your life. Instead, a personalised homepage just for you. We’ll be adding more sports, markets and features as the year progresses to further tailor the app to each member. We’d also like to extend our sincere thanks to all the members who have helped test the beta version. We’re hopeful that you’ll enjoy another favourable way to bet with Fitzdares, alongside our current Private Office services. Please let us know what you think – we promise to listen as best we can.
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An email with a link to download the app will be with you very soon. Best wishes, Freddie Pelly, Digital Product Manager
‘We are aiming for each individual member to have a totally unique experience.’
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TRAINING IN THE Jim Crowley Champion Jockey 2016
By Willie Carson OBE Champion Jockey in 1972, 1973, 1978, 1980 & 1983 the training – it’s all changed in my lifetime. Nowadays you’ve got gyms, they’ve got these equicisers. We had a bail of straw! I wasn’t naturally fit. I did 6 stone 5 in 1959 at Aintree, and that wasn’t a natural weight for me – I was on oranges for a week. I’d imagine cyclists are the fittest sportsmen of all, but the best way to get fit for race-riding was to race-ride. It’s very difficult to get race-riding fit because of the muscles you don’t use unless you’re riding – your legs, basically, the quads. They actually take a lot of strain – standing up on the irons and pushing the horse is basically like doing a rowing machine. When you’re not riding every day, you’d have to keep running and cycling – put on as many clothes as you could and go running. There were no gyms, especially where I was up in Middleham, miles from nowhere. Of course, in my day we had four months off, and then it was always a battle at the beginning of the season to get fit again. The last 10 years of riding I would go to my local place down here (near Cirencester) and I always had a private trainer to push me. As you get older in years you have to be pushed. He timed me at things and he’d try to make me go quicker every day. I’d cycle for 15 minutes just to warm up, stretches, rowing machine, weights – I did everything. It was a gruelling hour. I felt great; I felt much stronger and the wind was a lot better. One year – it was the first time I’d used a private trainer – I started 3-4 weeks before racing started and I ended up going to the races 8 stone 2. Very fit – but very muscly. The
muscle I’d built up at the top of my legs put weight on me and I couldn’t do my weight, so there was a bit of panic. But I stopped doing the gym and, by riding every day, gradually those muscles went. The race meeting (to mark the start of the season) always in your mind was Doncaster. You jumped off the first horse and your knees gave way, oh dear! Then there was a race over two miles. I always dreaded getting a ride in that – there were a lot of tired jockeys in that race. If you got involved in the finish and overdid it – I remember one year I just lay down in the weighing room. It’s like breathing in fire, every breath felt like fire in your chest. That was before the days of the gyms. That was riding and not being 100 per cent fit. But after a week of riding every day you get into the rhythm. I always had a hot bath before I went to the races – luckily I had an aeroplane, so I’d be in a hot bath two hours before I rode to loosen up all the muscles. I’ve had 36 broken bones that I know about. I didn’t box, but I did meet Muhammad Ali; that was ’69. I was in Miami for the winter, riding, learning the trade as it were. He was in Miami Beach, at Angelo Dundee’s gym. I was chatting to Angelo, and Ali was a few yards away being interviewed for TV. And then all of a sudden Angelo got hold of me and threw me up against Ali. He was a giant of a man, don’t forget, and I’m a little shrimp. And of course your man, quick as a flash, turned around and looked at me, looking down with those great big eyes, and said: “Don’t hit me, don’t hit me.” My head went up to his waist, I think. n
i remember a few years back Kieren Fallon said to me: “Being a champion jockey is all in the mind.” I remember thinking this was absolute nonsense, but he was right! Since becoming champion jockey you really do realise how much of a mental test it is. If I’m riding out in the mornings I’ll be up at 5:30am and my last ride could be at 9pm, so I won’t get home until midnight – and this monotonous cycle will continue, so family time is really precious. I realised in order to counter this I had to get myself a driver who would take me to the different racecourses I was riding at. It’s the best thing I ever did, as it meant in those down moments I could chat to my wife and kids and take my mind off things. My family have always been so supportive. No day is exactly the same and my routine is constantly evolving. During the first half of the year I would be riding out twice a week and keeping fit in the gym (I have a gym at home, which helps). I do a lot of interval training – sprinting for 20/30 seconds and then resting for 40 seconds – and I’ll try and do this for 30 minutes. It’s a real killer. It’s all about doing those hard yards early so you can sustain the physical pressures throughout the long season. One of the main reasons I won the Jockeys Championship this year was down to my fitness – I genuinely never felt tired, even when I was going from Haydock to Chelmsford in a day. A few of us jockeys went up to see Dr George Wilson at Liverpool John Moores University a couple of years back – he has revolutionised how jockeys train and live their lives. Now I know that after exercise I have a 30-minute window to refuel my body properly. It’s so scientific now it’s scary. I’ll have a protein shake straight after I work out, and then I’ll have ham and eggs as a meal to keep protein intake up. When I’m riding through the day I rely on fruit and nuts to snack on, as I can’t really eat anything too large or heavy. At the end of a long day’s racing all I want to do is get home and spend quality time with my family. We only have one month now in the off-season, so it’s important to unwind and relax. This goes for food as well – I literally eat anything and everything. I think it’s important to enjoy yourself; it keeps you sane. My natural weight is 9 stone 5, but I need to be at 8 stone 9 to ride. Before my new diet I really used to struggle making
the weight; I was constantly in the sauna sweating everything out – it was pretty horrible and it wasn’t sustainable. I know for a fact that if I were doing it this way I would never have become champion jockey. Since seeing Dr Wilson I don’t struggle at all any more, and at 38 I’m the fittest I’ve ever been. Mentally I feel stronger because I have so much confidence in my routine and what I’m eating, so if you can look after yourself in that way other things tend to fall into place. With regards to becoming champion, I never really set out to become champion jockey. It sounds strange, but because the season is so long you just can’t sustain it. Basically if you have a chance two months out from the end then you go for it; it’s actually a plan that you really only make halfway through the season. For example, when I rode 46 winners in September – which is unheard of – you honestly couldn’t go at that rate through the whole year. You do, however, start to become very ruthless the closer you get to the prize. I remember taking a bit of stick for not riding up at Doncaster at the Leger meeting – but as my horse was a nonrunner it meant that I was able to ride a four-timer at Lingfield that very same day. I loved my battles with Silvestre de Sousa. It’s weird, though, because in the last month of riding it was like I was riding with a sixth sense. I genuinely thought I was invincible – the closest jockeys come to being in the zone, I guess. Every time I sat on a horse I knew I would win. n Fitzdares has made a donation to the Freddy Tylicki fund on behalf of both jockeys
& 21ST CENTURY
TIME SPEN NT BEATING T THE ODDS
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THOROUGHBRED BOOKIE 1982
2005
T. Guntrip
Fitzdares FITZDARES
2016
Sunderlands aquire Habbershaws
2016
Sunderlands aquire Laurie Wallis
2005
Sunderlands aquire T. Guntrip
2005
Sunderland & Co
1982
1946
Laurie Wallis
1998
1998
Habbershaws
1924
1905
1882
135 years of heritage: the oldest swinger in town
Fitzdares aquires Sunderlands
‘In the age of faceless betting exchanges, Fitzdares still has that old-fashioned personal touch.’ – Robin Oakley, The Spectator, 3 September 2016
Farmer Tom Guntrip with his family, Jack (left), wife Eva and stepson Alf Magrath
Sunderlands, so named because founder Pat Densham flew the Sunderland Bomber in World War
e are delighted to be looking after former clients of Sunderlands, and proud to be part of such a rich bookmaking tradition. It has been a busy six months; we have tried hard to enhance your service with our Fitzdares touches and, at the very least, ensure it feels like business as usual. We have succeeded in some respects but are conscious we have more to do. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of the team if you have a question or any feedback. Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and reasonably prosperous New Year!
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OTHER BOOKIES’ FOUNDING DATES 1890 Heathorns 1902 Ladbrokes 1926 Coral 1928 Tote 1934 William Hill 1946 Victor Chandler 1967 Betfred 1988 Paddy Power 1999 Betfair 2000 Bet365 Laurie Wallis
Michael & Simon Wallis
2001 SkyBet
25 A modern British classic: the Fitzdares canvas holdall designed by Bill Amberg
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2 KENT v LANCASHIRE AT CANTERBURY Albert Chevallier Tayler 1906 Former Sotheby’s chairman Henry Wyndham, who has just launched the art advisory business Clore Wyndham Fine Art Ltd, selects his top ten sports paintings
7 RACEHORSES EXERCISING AT GOODWOOD George Stubbs 1759-60
3 THE TENNIS PARTY Sir John Lavery 1885
6 DEMPSEY AND FIRPO George Bellows 1923-24
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9 STAG AT SHARKEY’S George Bellows 1909
1 WHISTLEJACKET George Stubbs c1762
4 THE GROSVENOR HUNT George Stubbs 1762
8 THE BIGLIN BROTHERS TURNING THE STAKE Thomas Eakins 1873
10 DYNAMISM OF A CYCLIST Umberto Boccioni 1913
5 THE RED PRINCE MARE Alfred Munnings 1921
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