Oh wow, we finally won something. Brilliant. And when I say ‘we’, I’m prepared, for once, to become British. Because Northern Ireland is part of Great Britain, albeit a consistently troublesome part, and Rory McIlroy is from ‘the province’ and thus his victory is our victory and we can bask in the collective joy of his brilliance. Ok, its only golf, not a proper sport, but we take what we can get. And this is not like Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, because although he’s (for the time being) ‘British’, we hate him. Whereas Rory is charming and delightful and also prodigiously talented. He’s now won three major tournaments and is only 25. A feat only ever previously achieved by Tiger Woods (we’ve all heard of him) and someone else that we’ve collectively forgotten. Now all Rory has to do is crash his car whilst rushing out to shag 14 mistresses and he can become one of the sport’s true greats.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with golf, per se. Its just… its just… that ‘sport’ involves sweating. Not just the sweat you get whilst sunbathing in Tenerife, but proper, down the gym, running the track, rugby-scrum type sweat. The sweat of endeavour, of hard work, of pushing the body beyond its comfortable limits, or of sitting on a tube train in July. Proper sweat, for proper sport.

Lewis Hamilton sweats four times his body weight (ok, that’s not much, agreed, but its all he has… other than Nicole Scherzinger) every race he drives. But its sitting down sweat. Driving a car. I drove to the City yesterday afternoon, had the top down and sweated like a pig. But no-one took out a magnum of champagne and sprayed it over me when I parked. Not even a poxy can of Coke. Though Lewis did really well, coming from 20th place on the start to finish 3rd. Wish I’d have seen even the teensiest bit of it… there again, not really, but a wonderful result for the diamond-earringed-one, and thus for all of England.

The cricket’s not looking so good. But we have confidence in our tail-enders, even if we have none in our openers. And we can beat India. Though the Indians don’t seem to be aware of this. At the moment.

Then, after searching all the sports pages, every little nibble and snippet, I found about 4 words about football. I mean, come on, is that all there is? And in 4 very succinct words, it transpires that all the players Spurs want to sign are going elsewhere, Arsenal are spending loads on the superstars they always used to pride themselves on never signing, Manchester United still have a new manager and Chelsea are buying everyone else.

But I’m still exited, because until that first ball is kicked, in about 3 weeks time, we’re all level. Anything can happen. Its all about promise. Potential. Hope. And praying. Lots and lots of praying.

Happy monday

Amen.

A xxxx