Ball Games
Created | Updated Jul 3, 2004
What is it with the English, summer and balls?
Cricket balls, footballs, tennis balls, and graduation balls.
The gee-gees have finishing breaking their necks over the fences. The great washed and unwashed have realised, yet again, that watching them run round on a flat surface is about exciting as a grand prix without a crash. The cleavage and cream brigade have shown us that you can change the proportions of a woman by sticking something ludicrous on her head and we're now all bored.
Thank god for balls.
Take football, which we only get in the summer every other year. Year one world cup, year two no footie, year three European cup, year four no footie.
This must be one of the odd years even though numerically it is even. This summer we have footie. This summer we don't have a sea of geranium hanging baskets adorning our streets, This summer we are drowning in a jingoistic ocean of red and white flags.
Suddenly everyone is an armchair expert on the glorious game.
'Beckham is God!'
'Bloody Scholes he's playing like a big girl's blouse!'
'Run you tosser!'
'Oh no! Not Vassal! '
What the hell is Owen playing at?'
All this from the pragmatic female in accounts who barely musters a drop of perspiration when the footsie surges forward. Take out an 's' and she has a personality transplant.
Red, not a good fashion colour, is a disaster as a uniform. Hop filled bellies take on EU Mountain proportions, striped kaftanesque shoulders become the new erogenous zones, and pulling is confined to pints.
And then the ball goes out.
Beckham is relegated to tosser division. Shoulders appear in their full glory again. Women go back to white wine and weight-watchers, and every Greek and Portuguese restaurant in the Home Counties is boycotted.
Which neatly brings us to another ball game, cricket. Enjoyed by men and tolerated by women. Lost in fantasy the boys sit comfortably in their own space and revel in the inarticulate intellectual. Wind in the Willows for grown-ups. The women have their presence or at least a well-dressed semblance of it and are moderately comfortable cutting the cucumbers, checking out who is possibly having an affair with whose husband and covertly grooming the young lad playing second stump or something, (they really couldn't care less) for future adventures. And then rain stops play, which coincidentally moves us forward to the yellow balls of Wimbledon.
This has to be the greatest of all the summer balls. The grey green canopy covering centre court has to the BBC's most triumphant televisual achievement. Day after day we are enthralled by the summer break. Cameramen put in for the Wimbledon gig years in advance, knowing they can happily book their annual holiday and not be missed. Nothing happens, the rain comes down and the nation is enthralled. True, Henman will go out at some point, quite possibly Cliff Richard will be in the crowd and it's always good for minor royalty spotting. Thankfully we have the re-runs of years gone by when boys knew how to play, hair was the order of the day and shorts were moulded to the bits that matter.
And so we move on to the graduation ball. Tuxedos covering the future EU Mountain, Frocks that cling to pre weight-watchers curves, adrenaline spent, the high of achievement; the pulling of your three year fantasy.
Let's face it ball games are not about the balls, they are about the people playing with them.
Cricket balls, footballs, tennis balls, and graduation balls.
The gee-gees have finishing breaking their necks over the fences. The great washed and unwashed have realised, yet again, that watching them run round on a flat surface is about exciting as a grand prix without a crash. The cleavage and cream brigade have shown us that you can change the proportions of a woman by sticking something ludicrous on her head and we're now all bored.
Thank god for balls.
Take football, which we only get in the summer every other year. Year one world cup, year two no footie, year three European cup, year four no footie.
This must be one of the odd years even though numerically it is even. This summer we have footie. This summer we don't have a sea of geranium hanging baskets adorning our streets, This summer we are drowning in a jingoistic ocean of red and white flags.
Suddenly everyone is an armchair expert on the glorious game.
'Beckham is God!'
'Bloody Scholes he's playing like a big girl's blouse!'
'Run you tosser!'
'Oh no! Not Vassal! '
What the hell is Owen playing at?'
All this from the pragmatic female in accounts who barely musters a drop of perspiration when the footsie surges forward. Take out an 's' and she has a personality transplant.
Red, not a good fashion colour, is a disaster as a uniform. Hop filled bellies take on EU Mountain proportions, striped kaftanesque shoulders become the new erogenous zones, and pulling is confined to pints.
And then the ball goes out.
Beckham is relegated to tosser division. Shoulders appear in their full glory again. Women go back to white wine and weight-watchers, and every Greek and Portuguese restaurant in the Home Counties is boycotted.
Which neatly brings us to another ball game, cricket. Enjoyed by men and tolerated by women. Lost in fantasy the boys sit comfortably in their own space and revel in the inarticulate intellectual. Wind in the Willows for grown-ups. The women have their presence or at least a well-dressed semblance of it and are moderately comfortable cutting the cucumbers, checking out who is possibly having an affair with whose husband and covertly grooming the young lad playing second stump or something, (they really couldn't care less) for future adventures. And then rain stops play, which coincidentally moves us forward to the yellow balls of Wimbledon.
This has to be the greatest of all the summer balls. The grey green canopy covering centre court has to the BBC's most triumphant televisual achievement. Day after day we are enthralled by the summer break. Cameramen put in for the Wimbledon gig years in advance, knowing they can happily book their annual holiday and not be missed. Nothing happens, the rain comes down and the nation is enthralled. True, Henman will go out at some point, quite possibly Cliff Richard will be in the crowd and it's always good for minor royalty spotting. Thankfully we have the re-runs of years gone by when boys knew how to play, hair was the order of the day and shorts were moulded to the bits that matter.
And so we move on to the graduation ball. Tuxedos covering the future EU Mountain, Frocks that cling to pre weight-watchers curves, adrenaline spent, the high of achievement; the pulling of your three year fantasy.
Let's face it ball games are not about the balls, they are about the people playing with them.
