England's 47-year drought
THE BRITS have been basking in euphoria over Wimbledon, the British and Irish Lions, the Ashes series so far and the Tour de France. But what of the vast majority who support football? They've been getting restive, that's what, especially those in the England portion of the sceptred isle.
England hasn't won a Football World Cup since 1966 – that's 47 years. Recriminations are beginning to fly between the Football Association, which is responsible for the national game, and the Premier League, which runs the world's top club competition and is accused of eclipsing the national game.
And if you look for the actual English component of the recent non-football successes, it's rather limited. Andy Murray is a Scot. The Lions were predominantly Welsh and coached by a Kiwi. The England cricket side is coached by a Zimbabwean and has so many South Africans in it that some call it South Africa B. Chris Froome was born and bred in Kenya and schooled in South Africa.
Are the English feeling a bit excluded?
And to leave the sportsfields for a moment, is there a further erosion? The latest issue of the Spectator magazine is themed "Colonial Rule." It points out that men from the Commonwealth are taking over all kinds of positions of power in the British Establishment.
A Canadian is Governor of the Bank of England. The Conservative Party's political strategist is an Aussie. His counterpart in the Liberal Democrats (part of the ruling coalition) is a South African.
England so badly need to win the Football World Cup. Pride, mate, that's wot it is.
Japanese factor
MORE on the events that were happening almost in secret off our coastline during World War II. Closer analysis of the sinkings of Allied ships, as recorded on the map recently supplied by reader Roy Hannington, suggests that at least eight were sunk by Japanese submarines.
Most were in the neutral waters of Mozambique but one was south of St Lucia and close in.
This raises intriguing questions. How closely involved overall were the Japanese? How close did Durban ever come to being attacked? Newspaper files from the period contain occasional laconic fragments on fighters being scrambled from Stamford Hill airfield to intercept unnamed "enemy aircraft" over the harbour; of ships in the harbour joining in with their anti-aircraft guns.
Whose could these enemy aircraft have been? The nearest German and Italian aircraft were in North Africa, way out of range. Could they have been from a Japanese aircraft carrier somewhere offshore? It seems the only possibility.
My old colleague Owen Coetzer was heavily engaged, in his retirement, on researching the question. Shortly before he died he ran an extract in the Sunday Tribune in which he described how a Japanese aircraft carrier group was actually on its way to Durban to attack the graving dock. The carrier and its escorting vessels received a signal which diverted them to Midway, in the south Pacific, for the epic aerial battle with the US fleet, where the Americans all but destroyed Japanese sea power.
A close call for Durban? Makes ya think. Sad to say, Owen died without his book ever being published.
Blaze of lights
IT RECALLS a story told by former MP Ray Swart who, on a parliamentarians' visit to Britain, met a retired admiral who had been in command in Durban during World War II. The admiral told him the strict blackout was suddenly interrupted one night by a blaze of coloured lights along the beachfront.
He phoned the mayor to protest and was told: "My dear fellow, this is our July season."
His next call was to Prime Minister Smuts, and the lights soon went out.
Pedalling councillors
IAN GIBSON, poet laureate of Hillcrest, pens some lines on the prospect of Ethekwini councillors riding to work on pushbikes.
Ratepayers are in for rib-tickling treats,
With councillors trundling bikes in the streets;
But what of their chauffeurs
Will they become loafers?
Having covered their Beemers in sheets?
Tailpiece
PROSPECTIVE seaside hotel guest, making a telephone booking "Are you close to the beach?"
Desk clerk: "We're a stone's throw away."
"How do I find the place?"
"That's easy. It's the one with all the broken windows."
Last word
Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.
No comments:
Post a Comment