Sporting honours

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 13 May 2005 21:17.

MR regulars will have noticed from the jpegs that daily decorate our banner that war has a prominent place in my understanding of Western intellectual, social and political development. War shapes our society for decades after the last shot has been fired. It is the father of social instability as well as some truly rotten ideas about a “better world”. Some time I might try to prove that the advanced phase of liberalism with which Western Man is now struggling is wholly the product of The Great War and its continuation a generation later. What, one wonders, might our world be like today had peace prevailed in 1914? Liberal no doubt, but not marxian.

But whatever one’s reasons for paying heed to those two great European upheavals of the Twentieth Century, it is something worthy of our personal time. So I was interested to read this report of the regal progress to England this summer of Ricky Ponting’s Australian Test side.

Since becoming captain of the Australian Test side, Ricky Ponting has trodden a skilful line between maintaining the team’s traditions and introducing a few refinements of his own.

This approach is reflected in the team’s travel plans for the summer. On their way to England four years ago, the Aussies stopped off in Gallipoli to honour the Anzac war heroes - a patriotic pilgrimage that Steve Waugh hoped would be repeated every time a tour of England came round.

This year, though, the venue for Ponting’s European stopover is to be France.

It is a little-known fact that 53,000 Australians died on the Western Front in the First World War, four times the number lost in Turkey.

From their base in Lille, Ponting’s men will take in the Australian Memorial Park at Fromelles, 10 miles to the west, then continue to Villers-Bretonneux, where Australian troops halted the German spring offensive in 1918.

The town has honoured its saviours by naming streets after Australian suburbs and creating a logo in the shape of a kangaroo.

Whilst clinging to the improbable hope that Ponting’s peerless side will get a pasting this summer I’d like to note the fact that this is the way great champions and great sporting representatives of their country ought to behave. Australians are not known for making light of their sporting heroes. But on this occasion they are completely justified.

Tags: Sport

Comments:

Posted by Andrew L on Fri, 13 May 2005 22:30 | #

The Poms must be quacking in their boots at the eventual humiliating , and , lets say their futuristic , Again, loss of the ashes, ha, This in line of normal Pommy media is flattering, have they given up the political propaganda sporting wars or what, Just a bit of Australian Retoric, but hard not to desmiss that Cultural Marxism has a lot to do with the decline of Pommy sporting proessssss, although a smidgen of inprovement, but the leftoids still have a firm Gripp, of what, the imagination can run wild, but in this context, Cricket bat.Can not call it Great Britain any more, just Britain, ha.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Fri, 13 May 2005 22:40 | #

The Poms must be quacking in their boots at the eventual humiliating

Trust the Aussies to show great humility as usual before battle.

Guessedworker,

If you follow cricket (which makes you about one of five people in this country Id imagine - myself included), I think we may lose the Ashes this time but our hopes are improving dramatically. Without McGrath and Warne (both on the wrong side of the 30s now), they won’t be quite so formidable in future. And, they don’t appear to have the bowlers who could step into their shoes.

I am often amazed at how they can churn out good batsmen one after another but one injury to Warne or McGrath suddenly makes them look a lot more vulnerable. Their bench strength isn’t great in the bowling department.

Posted by Andrew L on Fri, 13 May 2005 23:29 | #

The selectors here are some what a bunch of eletist idiots, and you would be confident in saying that politics of the elites does have an effect on some players, batting and bowling, there are a large number of both tallents here, but they seem not to subscribe to some selectors thoughts, so they do not get go, some state players have formidable credentuals than some of the Australian team, but do not even get a look in, the added art of brown nosing, suspected,but like all cycles , what goes around comes around. I use to play cricket at The state level in under 16, and 19, way back in the seventies, alot has become political sinse then.Not the best, always, actually get the Jernsie.

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sat, 14 May 2005 01:06 | #

And what about Adam Gilchrist reviving the tradition of walking? Who would have thought this cricketing tradition would return, and from the Australian team no less!

Posted by Andrew L on Sat, 14 May 2005 01:25 | #

Someone had to make up for Trevor Chapple"s under arm delivery all those years ago, and when N Z Declared war on Australia, they deployed their sheep,to keep the soldiers from being home sick, ha.Cruel one, but then again , the Welsh are in that boat I heard.“The puns are flowing"Yep the sheep boat.“N Z Love boat”,Lucky the poms escape some of this, but, What happened to Terry Lamb, The Keewe’s were keen to get their hands on him,and Ian Botham, I hear was band by Islam in the UK , Ha Enough.

Posted by Andrew L on Sat, 14 May 2005 01:42 | #

I ought to have mentioned, one perhaps less enviable record held by an Australian Cricketer is David Boon, The record of the most beer consumed in flight from Australia to UK, to which has not or probable, ever be broken, like I said , less enviable, but a record none the less.Inspirational and fundamental assetts.

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sat, 14 May 2005 01:46 | #

That’s exactly it, Andrew. The Australians of the 70s and 80s were great cricketers, but they were beer-swilling, sledging, underarm bowling roughs. Now, all of a sudden, out of the blue, we have Gilchrist and a few others behaving like they’ve stepped out of one of the English Boys’Own books I used to read as a child.

Posted by Geoff M. Beck on Sat, 14 May 2005 04:12 | #

WWI a calamity for our civilization, yet the brave boys that fought that war were the best we’ll ever have.

The Aussies put up a helluva good fight in Gallipoli.

~
<u>World War I as the End of Civilization</u>

http://www.mises.org/mp3/War/War8a.mp3

40 Minutes

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 09:19 | #

Not a pretty sight (chuckle)

Posted by Andrew L on Sat, 14 May 2005 09:50 | #

That has to be a near priseless picture, you can definitly make out the Rod Marsh image at the other end, remember that point of time very well, 6 runs to get off the last delivery.OOOO now I am feeling old,ha

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sat, 14 May 2005 10:12 | #

Don’t the New Zealanders know you can’t use a bat in lawn bowls!

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 10:40 | #

Didn’t rodders try to talk the Chappells out of it? Didn’t work!

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 10:45 | #

The Australians of the 70s and 80s were great cricketers

Australians under Ian Chappell were good, probably among the best of all time. But by the time the World Series Cricket drama ended, they were just above average and getting worse fast. By the time time Allan Border became captain, they were probably at the bottom of the pile. And it wasn’t until they won the Ashes in 1989 that they recovered their pre-eminent position.

Posted by Mark Richardson on Sat, 14 May 2005 11:05 | #

Guessedworker’s reference to Villers-Bretonneux reminded me of some reading I did on the battle a few years ago.

The battle is famous for a number of reasons, most notably for turning back the last great German offensive. It was also the scene for the first ever battle between tanks (the enormous German tanks had a crew of 22), as well as the shooting down of the Red Baron.

The battle was finally won for the Allies by a famous night-time bayonet charge by the Australian 15th Brigade. The Australians ran directly into heavy machine-gun and rifle fire but couldn’t be checked.

Australian readers might also be interested to know that the town of Robinvale derives its name from the battle. An Australian pilot, Robin Cuttle, was killed at Villers-Brettoneux and when the railway line was extended into northern Victoria, Robin’s mother prepared an embroidered sign for the new station reading “Robinvale” (Farewell Robin).

(Unhappily, Robinvale is now a town riven by fights between Aborigines and migrant Pacific Islanders.)

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 14 May 2005 11:17 | #

Phil,

The reason they did so was because the Academy boys were taught to face the West Indian foursomes standing sideways and still. The rest, meanwhile, were square-on before delivery, waving an ultra-heavy bat around and twitching as if an electrode had been fitted to each testicle.

From then on success bred success. It’s a curious thing how, in any field, the production of excellence becomes established once a certain critical mass is achieved. In sport examples abound, perhaps the most unlikely being the generation of Swedish tennis players that followed upon the success of Bjorn Borg. But the tendency applies at least as much to cultural hotspots ... the Dutch masters, 19th century German symphonic composers, English explorers and inventors, the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Genius arises in an unpredictable and individualistic way. But a school of excellence is a cultural artifact particular to one locale. The Italian operatic tradition, for example, is at one with the Italian national temperament and could not be produced in that form by another people.

This may explain why America is such a cultural desert, notwithstanding its comparitive youth. I know my American colleagues will not thank me for dwelling on this, but is it likely now that such wonderful schools of excellence will arise among such a culturally dissonant people?

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 13:07 | #

Guessedworker,

The story of the academy is an amazing story in its own right (for those who watch Cricket).

But I have always believed this: would the Australian team show the same spiritedness in future if half the team members trace their ancestry to China, Taiwan, Latin America, the Middle East or Africa?

Aside from the attainment of technical excellence, one enduring feature of Australian teams especially under Waugh and Ponting has been their fighting spirit - a kind of effective team spirit rarely seen ever seen in most team sports. Part of it is because the team has a sense of what it means to be Australian. Once that sense is destroyed its just 11 guys who can hit a ball or throw well. Its not a team anymore.

(Incidentally the West Indians got so good by also indulging in a quasi-racial appeal to avenge the insults inflicted by white teams in the colonial and immediate post-colonial era. Yes Viv Richards could bat and Michael Holding could send a few thurnderbolts but it was this sense of fighting for a kind of quasi-racialist/nationalistic pride that made them so formidable.)

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 14 May 2005 13:36 | #

An Aussie friend of ours once insisted that it was the natures of men hardened in the heat of their cricketing summer than made these guys so tough. Something in that, I think.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 13:59 | #

But if men hardened by heat were the prerequisite, India and Pakistan would be at the top. They get much more heat than the Aussies do.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 14 May 2005 14:32 | #

But the Indians and Pakistanis are born to it. The point about the Aussies is that they have struggle against themselves to endure it.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 15:44 | #

Yep, that is an important distinction.

One thing that has always amused me is how New Zealand, who have been a super-power in Rugby for years, never manage to produce anything more than just an average cricket team.

The All Blacks, though, have been peerless at their best.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 15:53 | #

Actually this is a better picture (chuckle)

The second is Warne’s “ball of the century” to a not very amused Mike Gatting. (chuckle)

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sat, 14 May 2005 15:56 | #

Here’s an even more hilarious picture. Glenn mcGrath trying to bowl underarm (chuckle):

Posted by Matra on Sat, 14 May 2005 19:35 | #

I was living in New Zealand at the time of the infamous underam delivery and I recall the hatred expressed towards Australians the following day at school. Yup…it was as if they wanted to declare war. A year or so before that the Kiwis were in a similar rage after a West Indies bowler, Croft, deliberately elbowed an umpire before a delivery. Of course, as the Brit expat joke went at the time the Kiwis couldn’t declare war on anyone because their air force, like the bird that is the symbol of their nation, is wingless, toothless, and useless!

Posted by Matra on Sat, 14 May 2005 19:45 | #

Phil - “One thing that has always amused me is how New Zealand, who have been a super-power in Rugby for years, never manage to produce anything more than just an average cricket team.”

A small country like NZ is only likely to be world beaters in a sport that is a national passion. Cricket was almost as popular as rugby union back in the late 70s and early 80s when I lived there, but I think that was an unusual time with NZ beating the Windies and the Kerry Packer thing. Before then cricket wasn’t as important to them as rugby and that’s the way it is today. NZ’s rainy climate was a factor in the sport not being played by kids as often as in Australia.

Posted by Phil Peterson on Sun, 15 May 2005 00:14 | #

Of course, as the Brit expat joke went at the time the Kiwis couldn’t declare war on anyone because their air force, like the bird that is the symbol of their nation, is wingless, toothless, and useless!

LMAO. I hope any Kiwis here don’t take offence.