All good things must come to an end and so, sadly, do the mind-bogglingly scandalous things. Go on, admit it. We lapped up every twist and turn of Briatore’s turbo-charged chicanery. We marvelled at the sheer ridiculousness of the day-glo ‘blood’ spouting from Tom Williams’s mouth. We hissed at football’s foul play — from diving to stamping to sprinting-the-whole-length-of-a-pitch-to-gloat-at-the-racist-gooners-gate. What a humdinger. Lob in a cameo from Ponts to get the audience booing and you’ve got the must-see panto of 2009.
But scandal seems to be deserting us and filling the void come some terrific episodes of sporting virtue. You know, derring do, victory against the odds — all the stuff sport’s meant to be good at. And none are greater than the villain-turns-hero drama currently playing in South Africa.
A few weeks ago, England’s cricketers were literally self-destructing, Owais Shah crunching into Joe Denly in a kick-about before the Oval one-dayer, bending the latter’s knee to an angle that would have made Vinnie Jones come over a bit wobbly just watching.
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