If she was not aware, the late-night drinking culture in our inner cities
tends to be far removed from that of, say, Seville, where one can still
enjoy perfectly civilised company over a final tempranillo.
Bridge Street, Manchester, by contrast, offers a more open invitation to
trouble at that forsaken hour than if Slater had stencilled âHit Meâ
alongside his other tattoos.
Slaterâs primary excuse for this cultural excursion was that he and Team
Australia were spending eight weeks away. The implication, as the England
rugby set first tried to suggest after seeking the company of Queenstown
dwarves, was that they needed to let off steam. Go for a run, then. Go
swimming in the Manchester Ship Canal if your veins are coursing with so
much adrenalin. And just maybe, give the carousing a miss. Two months of
relative asceticism are hardly a trial when you are favourites to restore a
World Cup to your country, but if history teaches us anything it is that
athletes abroad are an incorrigible breed.
Gazzaâs âdentistâs chairâ, Freddie Flintoff and the case of the missing
pedalo: the list is endless. Remove a team sportsman from his domestic
duties and soon enough
he begins behaving like some frat-boy sophomore on spring break in Vegas. Not
that Australia are likely to acknowledge as much in Slaterâs case.
When they left Sydney Airport last month one of their press team, presumably
auditioning for a contract with Mills Boon, wrote of captain Cameron
Smith: âHe is mesmerised by his iPad, a window into another world. Staring
back through the glass are three little faces â his lifeblood. His kids.â
And then, almost as soon as the Qantas stewardesses switch the doors to
automatic, the âwhat goes on tour, stays on tourâ mantra descends like a
drug.
Thus far the Kangaroos have not exactly been delivering an object lesson to
fathers everywhere. Even before Slater spent his evening in clink, rookie
forward Josh Papalii had £200 stolen outside an ATM machine on his very
first night in England. âThe man,â Greater Manchester Police added, âhad not
been able to recall what happened.â
A stern edict was issued against any further partying, but one might as well
tell the cat. Off-duty league tourists seem to swarm towards these
controversies like moths to a 100-watt lampshade. âAtrocitiesâ, Australians
call them, as if these are simply integral stitches in the narrative, like
an arrow in the eye on the Bayeux Tapestry.
With the faintest modicum of restraint, it need never be thus. Harry Redknapp,
hardly the most puritanical of judges, made this shrewd observation at
Tottenham in lambasting David Bentley for
drink-driving: âLook at the problems managers have, and so many come from what
has gone on in nightclubs.
âThe rewards for these players are fantastic, and they have time off in the
summer to enjoy themselves. Otherwise I donât see why the drinking should be
any part of what they are doing.â
For men whose bodies should be their essential tools, the Kangaroos were
certainly furnished with a plentiful supply of beer in their Cardiff
dressing room after vanquishing England. But Redknappâs wisdom might equally
be applied to fellow managers, after the hapless Steve Kean of Blackburn
found himself all over YouTube and several sheets to the wind in a Hong Kong
bar, making highly actionable comments about Sam Allardyce.
Alcohol and sport, you see: the two combine about as smoothly as oil and
water.
Article source: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/rugby-league-wane-test-stars-dragons-den-130441553.html
Rugby League World Cup 2013: Watch out, there"s a Kangaroo about
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