Did I Leave The Iron On?
Created | Updated Mar 21, 2005
The British Grand Prix - Farewell
Silverstone is wiped from the calendar. The home of Grand Prix racing no longer gets to host a Grand Prix event, the overblown fatcats who run the sport preferring to host in such obscure locations as Malaysia, Bahrain and the USA.
But is it a great loss, I ask myself. Why, of course not. It has been by far the worst-organised, worst-run, worst-weather and most boring Grand Prix on the schedule for most of the last ten years. Draw comparisons with British football in the 1980s, if you will. Come late July, all the roads in Northamptonshire would seize up with gridlock; it would invariably rain; and since the track re-design in the mid-1990s, overtaking has been nigh on impossible.
What does bemuse me somewhat are the plans by leading F1 teams to hold an 'unofficial' Grand Prix at Silverstone. Now, while devious plans to subvert Bernie Ecclestone are of course most welcomed in this column, the fact that even those who know most about the sport cannot part with the place is somewhat bemusing. Half the teams use it as a test track anyway, for Christ's sake - where's the fun?
Much more appealing is the prospect of a London City Grand Prix, through the streets of Westminster, along the lines of the Monaco or the late Detroit Grands Prix. Besides supporting our ailing Olympic bid, there would be a good chance of someone running over Tony Blair. My particular proposal would be for the Grand Prix route to visit all the points on a Monopoly board and for all the drivers to pilot 1960s Jaguar F1 cars (as typified by the Monopoly piece). The first driver to run Bernie Ecclestone out of money wins.
The Run Comes To An End
As I write, Arsenal's 49-match unbeaten run is drawing to a close after a drubbing at Old Trafford. And quite frankly, I'm quite pleased. Arsene Wenger has managed to turn himself into an even bigger hate-figure than Sir Alex, thanks to a complete lack of personality or sense of humour, an inability to see any yellow-card offence or more serious and his development of a team of remorseless heavy-tacklers (not that Arsenal have ever been anything but, mind you). Talented manager he may be, but nice bloke? No.
Something of reassurance, in the day and age of modern imports, is that all the best players on the pitch were English. Ferdinand, Phil Neville, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell were all outstanding, and could make up a decent back four for any England match if required. Not that Sven would select the actual best players, oh no.
Still on an England note, I would like to kick off the campaign for the promotion to the national side of the most exciting talent currently in the Premiership - one Stuart Downing. A prolific creater of goals, he has found his own goalscoring touch in the past week and two additional words: left footed. Surely that should be enough...
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Master B
with Several a.k.a. Random
