Jason Gillespie was an Aussie fast bowler. He’s still an Aussie but now he’s old he’s the coach at Yorkshire Cricket Club. Alma mater of Geoffrey Boycott, Sir Len Hutton, Freddie Truman, with a history going back thousands of years. When most of the club attitudes were formed and set in stone.

Gillespie is a vegan. Like a vegetarian, but with attitude. Vegan to vegetarian is like atheist to agnostic. An attitude that has already put him at odds with the cricket club’s main sponsors: Wensleydale Cheese. Because to Jason, cheese is the work of the devil. An evil. Abuse of cattle. Though I don’t personally see how relieving a cow of her surplus milk is a problem for anyone, cow included. There again, I don’t have a problem with abattoirs either so perhaps I’m not a proper judge. Throw another lettuce leaf on the barbie, Sheila.

But food debate is fine. Gillespie wants an end to using leather for cricket balls. Make them out of rubber. Plastic. Wood. Make them out of non-animal products.

I can’t see the cricketing establishment having any problem with that suggestion. They’re famously tolerant and flexible and eager for change. Yeah. Right.

Meanwhile, back in court, Eva Carneiro, the ex-Chelsea team doctor, turned down a meagre offer of £1.2million from Chelsea to settle her case against them of unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination. And the case against Jose Morinho, the then manager.

It all happened on the day ‘Jose lost the plot’. Something from which he never recovered and eventually resulted in his own dismissal from the club. The ref signalled for the doctor to come onto the pitch to attend a fallen (probably diving) player; Eden Hazard. The doctor has no choice at that point. Its her duty and responsibility to do as she has to. Morinho didn’t want this because it mean Hazard would then have to leave the pitch for a few minutes, after treatment, and wouldn’t be able to take part in a free kick.

So Morinho went ape-shit. Ranting and screaming and leaping round like a mad thing. A mad Portuguese thing, as it happens, and he shouted words at Eva’s back as she ran on. And either said: ‘filho da punta’ or ‘filha da punta’. Neither of which translates a ‘go with God’, that’s for sure.

The ‘filha’ version, which Eva maintains she heard, means ‘daughter of a whore’. I have no idea what Eva’s mother did for work. The ‘filho’ is the more generalised ‘son of a bitch’ and thus couldn’t possibly cause anyone any offence. Though he maintains that the ‘son of a bitch’ version was just a general comment on the state of the situation, rather than to Eva directly.

So good luck to the legal teams there, trying to lip-read an insane Portugeser as he’s leaping around, deciding whether its an ‘a’ or an ‘o’. Shouldn’t be hard.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx