Jeremy Corbyn didn’t sing the national anthem at a service in St
Paul’s Cathedral soon after becoming elected as the leader of the Labour
party. He was accused by some of not
showing respect or loyalty to his country.
On Friday 18th September,
the day that the rugby World Cup started, a column in The Times newspaper was
headlined,
“The left will never really love this country”.
If he cares about rugby at all, will Jeremy Corbyn be supporting the
country of his birth or will he and other English socialists have their
loyalties elsewhere? What about expats
living abroad; will they be supporting the country of their birth or will they
be hoping that their adopted country triumphs?
I never had any interest in the Winter Olympics until the 2010 Vancouver
games. I couldn’t name one UK competitor but I was
really hoping that Dow Travers would do well in the giant slalom because he was
the Cayman Island’s first ever winter Olympian and Caroline and I were living on
Grand Cayman at the time. He finished 101st
only beating a skier from India and one from Mexico. The UK didn’t have a competitor in that event
but if we had, I would have hoped Travers would beat him.
In February 1956 I was given a book token as a ninth birthday
present. I didn’t use it immediately and
so the token was unused for some weeks. Then
in April of that year I discovered the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. I literally read the 1956 Wisden from cover
to cover many times.
I had lived in Sidcup in Kent until 1953 and so I started by
reading about Kent County Cricket Club.
By the end of the summer of 1956, I could recite all the Kent averages
from the 1955 season and all of the county’s records. I can still remember many of the adverts in
that edition.
Although I played cricket in Middlesex for many years and played
with and against many Middlesex players, Kent remains the county whose result I
always check first because Kent was, is and will remain, my county.
In January 1955 my Dad took me 30 miles to Norwich to watch Norwich City play Bristol
City in the 3rd Division South of the Football League.
Norwich lost 0-1 but despite that and despite the fact that the
school where I taught for 33 years was only three miles from Tottenham
Hotspurs’ home ground, White Hart Lane, and even though for ten years I lived
only 500 yards from Underhill where Barnet played, Norwich City is still the
team whose results matter more to me than those of any other club.
I am in touch with Patrick Gallagher. Pat and I were at University together 50
years ago. He was a very good cricketer
indeed. After we graduated, we both lived
in London and we both joined Finchley Cricket Club. In a game for Finchley against Malden
Wanderers, Pat performed the remarkable feat of taking all ten wickets in an
innings – the only time I ever saw it done.
That feat was astonishing enough but what made it almost incredible was
that two of those wickets were as a result of catches by me at first slip.
A couple of years later he emigrated to Australia and he has been
living in Sydney for the past forty years.
In July this year I met him and I was surprised to hear him talk quite
casually of “our opening bowlers” when referring to the Australians: Johnson,
Starc and Siddle. I hoped that he was
doing it to see if I would ‘bite’ but I soon realised that I was wrong; he
meant it.
After the test series had finished Pat sent me an email with his
thoughts on the outcome and wrote: “…all our
quicks leaked runs…”, “I think our bowling can improve…” and, “Ever since 2005
our batsmen…”. I think this shows that
his assimilation into becoming an Australian is total and complete.
Perhaps Pat should bear in mind something said by Cecil Rhodes 150
years ago:
“Remember
that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the
lottery of life.”
Does it matter that Pat
has thrown away his lottery ticket when it comes to cricket? No, I don't think it does. Support for a team is rather like religious
faith. Faith is the belief in something
for which there is absolutely no evidence.
Every year I believe and have faith that Norwich will get promoted that
season or win the Cup. For a week or two, I really believe that it will happen.
Support both defies and
denies logic. It is only when the cold reality of the
facts hit me in the face that I accept, grudgingly, that my hopes for that
season with regard to Norwich will not be realised. Last season was a wonderful exception.
With most
sports, Pat transferred his allegiance to Australia within a couple of years but
with cricket it did take longer. In 1981
he had been in Australia a few years and when England won the Ashes series he
was still a Pom, disturbing the neighbours in an Adelaide hotel while he
cheered loudly in the small hours of the morning as England won at Headingley.
But, after
a few years of playing cricket with Australians, watching and reading about
Aussie cricket and talking about Aussie cricket, especially in the pre-internet
days, he found it harder and harder to stay engaged with English cricket.
Is he demonstrating that
he has passed the Aussie version of the Tebbit test? I am always tremendously uplifted whenever I
see an Afro-Caribbean or an Asian spectator in an England shirt supporting
England and so I shouldn’t be surprised if and when the same thing happens in
other places.
But all those immigrants
who support England today are second or third generation and I suspect that
those who arrived relatively recently still support their country of
origin.
Fifty years ago, in the
1960s when England played the West Indies at The Oval, all the West Indians in
the crowd, and there were many of them, vociferously supported the
Windies. That clamorous support is
largely absent nowadays for two reasons.
Ticket prices have risen disproportionally in the past 45 years and are
beyond the means of many. Most South
London Afro-Caribbeans who do go to The Oval were born here and those few who do
attend are supporting England.
I don’t think Pat
supports Australia just to have a happy, calm and harmonious time socially and
at work. For reasons that I can’t
understand and that totally elude me, he really does genuinely support
Australian cricket and probably gets the same unrestrained joy when
Australia wins a series against England 5 – 0 that I experience when Australia is bowled out before lunch for 60. I regard it with the same mystification and
bafflement with which I view religious faith.
To me at least, it challenges reason.
As I said earlier, support denies and defies logic and so at the
moment I am looking forward to the Ashes series of 2017-18, supremely confident that
by then Finn and Wood will have become world-beating opening bowlers; somebody
will have been found who can open the batting with Cook; we have an authentic
wicket-keeper/batsman and at least one genuine, international-class spinner and
we will retain the Ashes by winning at least three tests.
I really believe that.
A last thought: When Canada plays France in the Rugby World
Cup on 1st October, which team will the Quebecois support?
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