Quintin Jardine's blog

Who is the clown doing the boxing commentary on Radio 5?

Watching Man U this afternoon I’m wondering, ‘How did they get seven points?’

The Dutch guy must go.

When I started to watch football, the Scottish First Division had sixteen clubs. Top team members were expected to play thirty league games, six in the League Cup preliminary round, plus knockout ties through to the final and a minimum of one cup tie.

There were no European competitions; occasional mid week friendliest, but that was it. As for international competition, the home nations played each other once a year. World Cup qualifiers did happen but not many, and the European Cup was little more than a twinkle in the eye of Santiago Bernabeu.

How the world has changed, to the extent that elite footballers are now expected to up to sixty club matches a season. And the demand is growing. UEFA now runs three competitions and is making them bigger this year. At international level it has not only the European championship but a thing called the Nations League, giving Scotland yet another opportunity to be humped by its European neighbours. As for FIFA that has gone beyond avarice.

Little wonder that the top players are beginning to demand a say in the level of expectations that are being laid upon them. Expansion simply cannot go unchecked. If it doesn’t I foresee that one of two things will happen. Either agents will negotiate player contracts that stipulate the club competitions in which they will play … for example no more domestic cups … or the top teams will walk away and the heralded exclusive super league will become reality.

The top clubs would remove themselves from domestic football? As everything is about money, if the sponsors followed and the numbers stacked up, of course they would. Games would be streamed on Prime , Netflix etc. Match tickets would be relatively cheap, to ensure capacity crowd atmosphere. Frankly, I can’t wait.

Yesterday evening I watched a golfer win $25m, and two trophies, after finishing third in a 72-hole stroke play tournament. If I was Collin Morikawa, while respecting that Scottie Scheffler had been the outstanding golfer of the season and deserved to win the FedEx Cup with its pot of gold, I would be a little pissed off that my name isn’t on the Tour Championship trophy, having won that event by two shots.

When Tiget Woods won the Tour Championship in 2018, Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup, under a valid and understandable point system. A year later that was scrapped in favour a system imported from Nordic Combined, which is less clear and which has turned the year’s most prestigious tournament into a handicap event.

Why did they do that? For money, I guess. For me, though, they have ignored a fundamental principle of life: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Watching the Open on Sky, I can’t believe what they’ve just done. What does a player’s wife’s back story have to do with the championship?

It’s all over, and there seems to general agreement that the best team in the tournament won the trophy. However there are plenty of precedents in which that did not happen. The 1966 World Cup may have been one.

England lost, and yet they might not have, if they had seized the moment, after the substitutions had been made, and after they had equalised out of nothing. The Spanish were disorganised, off balance and under pressure. England were ascendant and had a throw in around twenty yards from the Spanish goal line. What would Rodri have done? He’d have thrown the ball to Yamal. What did Kyle Walker do? He looked around, for many long seconds, then threw the ball to Stones, who passed it back to Pickford, who went long and gave it back to Spain. They regrouped and England barely saw the ball again.

Courage over caution, that’s what the moment called for. Walker took the opposite approach, and that’s when England lost.

Watching the game on BBC it’s good to see Juan Mata on the pundit panel. One of my favourite Man U players and an exceptional human being. I wish he was still involved with the club, if only to dilute the Dutch cabal that seems to taking over the coaching side.

www.bbc.com/sport/football/videos/czk0y5dkmrpo

Quite a few of these celebs are unknown by me, but whatever if they do win it isn’t coming home. That would be Scotland.

Yes, I know the FA was formed before the SFA but the first recorded football club is said to be the Football Club of Edinburgh in 1824. 

To the pedant who accused me of being an ABE, (Anyone But England I assume) I’m not. I have two dogs in the race, so I am neutral. But why should the English expect their team to be our second choice?

I’m a boxing watcher, have been all my life, so here’s a prediction. Usyk beats Fury easily on points. One note of caution: if one judge had scored one round differently, ie for Joshua rather than Usyk, AJ would have been won.

Am I the only guy in Europe who saw the PSG goalie give one of the officials, possibly the ref, a smile and a big hug in the tunnel before the game last night?

Watching the Masters on telly I continue to be gobsmacked by the utter bullshit of the Rolex ad copy. It’s a watch, that’s all.

I have never been much good at sport, other than squash, and I was no better than average at that. But as a young journalist I did cover football for my paper. There I learned very quickly that as a local reporter it was my job to be partisan, and also that my press box companions from the nationals were a motley, cynical crew of which I had no wish to be part.

Looking back on them now I feel a fondness for them that was lacking at the time because at least they appreciated both sides of the game they were watching, sometimes through bleary eyes. It’s even stronger today as I contemplate the ongoing coverage of the England cricket tour of India, a nation of a billion people that has not lost more than one match in a series since Buddha was a novice.

If there is one word built into auto suggest in an English cricket journalist’s laptop it is this: woeful. Received wisdom in football is that you are only as good as your last game. Among the sneering hacks who follow Stokes’s side, most of them ex players who never scaled great heights, you are only as good as your current innings.

I accept that these people have a role as critics as well as reporters of the facts, but criticism is invalid when it comes from people who are incapable of acknowledging and factoring in the possibility that the opposition might actually be very good, and on that day might have played out of their skins.

It has been a useful week since arriving home from Kenya. I was anticipating having a quiet, relaxing few days off, away from the clubs. But, after …

Nothing Lasts Forever

Tomorrow, the Genesis Scottish Open golf championship enters its final day. This morning the tournament organisers brought forward all the starting times. The leading trio tee-ed off just after nine. Why? Because the weather people thought there might be storms in the afternoon. Did they material? No.

Tomorrow they will begin even earlier. Rory, Kim and Fleetwood will be in play before the clock has struck 9, and the starter’s work will be done. Why? Because the same weather people think there might be strong winds in the afternoon.

Having just come through the five minute rain shower that was the sum total of the feared storms, I am wondering when golf stopped being an all weather game. Could it have been when the European professionsl tour sold its soul to the US Tour?

In addition I am wondering whether anyone involved in these two cowardly decisions gave a moment’s thought to the interests of the thousands of fans who have shelled out big bucks to watch their heroes, but were left with no realistic chance of getting to the venue before 7am. Actually that is not true: I am not wondering because I am sure they don’t give a toss.

For the last 15 years, since the Qataris bought football, my motto has been ABC = Anyone But City. However with Sheikh Jassim hovering around Man U, and the Saudis owning Newcastle United, I have to face up to reality.

But all that aside, there is Pep and there are the rest. When he was promoted from being the Barca B coach to the top job, my friend Carlos said that he wasn’t sure about him. Carlos didn’t live to see his doubts assuaged, but I am sure he was smiling down on Turkey last night.

City deserved to win last night because they went out there with only that in mind, unlike Inter, whose first objective was not to lose. Plus they’re the best team on the planet.

Here’s one for Motherwell supporters of my vintage. What would Andy Paton have been like in the modern game?

Unlike many people who are offering critical opinions on Cristiano Ronaldo I watched all 90 minutes of his interview with Piers Morgan.

My view of modern professional footballers is coloured by the life experiences of those I knew when I was a kid. Back then, Ian St John combined the early years of his career with an apprenticeship in Motherwell Bridge. Many of those before and around him were part-timers from start to finish. They were also slaves: as soon as they signed a professional contract they were registered to that club until they were sold or released. Pre-Bosman players did not have freedom of contract.

No question, Cristiano is a lucky man to have been born into his era, Regardless of ability, anyone who can afford to turn down a €350 million offer, in the twilight of his career or at any other time, is blessed indeed.

And yet the slave mentality persists, Worse, it is supported by the attitudes and behaviour of media that haven’t really changed from the days when press boxes housed a disproportionate number of drunks and the semi-literate.

The response to the Ronaldo interview has been distorted. He has been portrayed as an uppity millionaire who is upset because his ego allows him to believe he should have special treatment. Possibly that criticism is valid, but he is also a man with undeniable grievances.

It is undeniable that chunks of the Morgan interview have been distorted and taken out of context, for example Sky Sports is reporting that he would be happy if Arsenal won the Premier League. It fails to mention his qualification, ‘after Manchester United’, or that his remark was in response to a question by the Arsenal supporting Piers Morgan. If he had chosen to give the interview to Sky’s Gary Neville rather than to a turd in a Savile Row suit I don’t need to ask how it would have been presented by the channel.

As a Man U supporter I am sad that Cristiano will never play for the club again. But given his emotional attachment to it, I am equally sad that he had been allowed to feel betrayed. That is classic mismanagement for which the club’s decision makers are entirely responsible. I’m beyond sad by his revelation that in the twelve years or so between his departure and his return the club’s infrastructure was entirely unchanged. I’m infuriated that its reviled owners have never met the man whose image has underpinned the countless millions they have trousered since they were allowed by our absurd corporate system to buy the business with borrowed money.

Today we are being told that the club has initiated appropriate steps. The (formerly Manchester) Guardian is reporting that these include taking CR7 to court. To me the most appropriate step the owners could take would be to meet with the finest player the club has known (with the possible exception of George Best) for a serious discussion, for it’s clear he knows a hell of a lot more about the business than they do.

The game isn’t the same without crowds.