The good guys are having a good time right now. And it makes a change from the usual headline-makers. Look at Chelsea. Hiddink and the formidable Michael Essien apart, John Terry’s men are all steely-eyed, humourless ambition — it’s difficult to warm to them. And the McLaren racing team — ferocious, implacable in their resolve, so ruthless they think nothing of spying and lying. Just as hard to like, despite the obvious charm of Lewis Hamilton. So let’s celebrate nice things happening to some unlikely people.
When Argentina’s Angel Cabrera, all scars, bulk and what looks like a daily intake of about 30 tons of nicorette chewing gum, putted in to take the Masters in Sunday’s small-hours play-off, anyone whose waistline is not quite what it was will have let their own belt out a notch in sheer relief. Cabrera’s scars, by the way, are from fist fights defending his turf in Cordoba, where he grew up after being abandoned by his parents. He likes food and fags (well, he used to). After winning the US Open in 2007, he said, ‘Some players deal with nerves by hiring sports psychologists. I just smoke.’ Good on you, Angel, and who better to wear the Green Jacket, generously cut on this occasion I hope.
And talking of golf, how thrilling to discover that Tim Henman plays off scratch, regularly tears up the Sunningdale course and, according to his regular practice partner Sam Torrance, could walk into the seniors tour when the time comes. So after all those years getting shellacked by the British public and media for only being the World No 4, having an agreeable middle-class life and wife, and not being nasty enough, the likeable Henman seems to be living the life of Riley.
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