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By David Whitely
Images: Getty Images
Issue: Inside Sport April 2006
The rivalry between Australia and England in just about everything
is a fertile breeding ground for banter, wind-ups and mutual baiting.
Notwithstanding some recent painful results, the standard state
of affairs is that Aussies give their English opponents an absolute
caning on the field, while the reverse happens on the other side
of the fence. In the game of verbal Pom bashing we are, alas,
still secondraters, often struggling to hit the mark (and, really,
it ought to be so easy).
But never fear, as Inside Sport has cajoled an Englishman
named DAVID WHITLEY into betraying his countrymen and giving us
the insider’s guide to hitting the bastards where it really
hurts. Just in time for the Commonwealth Games, too.
Australians, quite rightly, are very proud of being good at a
wide range of sports. However, bragging is not going to get you
anywhere if the Pom you’re talking to cares as much about
these sports as they do about personal hygiene. As a general rule,
the English only get hot and bothered about one sport, so you’re
going to have to stick to football (as in “soccer”:
see right) if you want a truly emotional reaction. After all,
who invented soccer hooligans, arguably the greatest expression
of sporting passion? None of us, apart from a few posh private
school boys with faces as flat as their intellects, really cared
about rugby until the 2003 World Cup final, and then it was only
because we won – pure novelty value. Now normal service
has been resumed and we’ve got as much chance of winning
a game as, err, last year’s Wallabies, it barely registers
on our radar. Suddenly, since the Ashes, we all like cricket.
Again, novelty. The truth is we’re so accustomed to being
hopeless at it that we can take just about any put-down with resigned
good humour – and even join in the laughter.As for other
sports – don’t even bother. Rugby league is an irrelevance
that fires up about a dozen northerners who live in the sort of
soul-destroying dungheaps that would make any sporting event seem
attractive. Swimming in England is not regarded as a serious sport
– rather a form of exercise for overweight people who can’t
afford a pair of trainers. Olympic and Commonwealth medals don’t
count unless they’re for running, and since just about all
of Australia’s podium finishes come in swimming, we don’t
give a toss about you fellows being several miles higher than
us on the medal table.
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The Poms' aversion to getting
wet extends to Jodie Henry and swimming.
[Getty Images]
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