KABBADI, kabbadi, kabbadi, kabbadi, kabaddi, kabaddi, kabbadi, kabba … oh, sod this, I’m out of breath. Sorry, give me a second. It is this inability to hold my … sorry, I’m still catching my breath. Give me another second … right, where were we? Oh yes. It is this inability to hold my breath which is the very reason why the diarist would’ve been laughed out of the recent Future Kabaddi Heroes programme, a landmark initiative which took place this week in the sport’s homeland of India in an attempt to foster grassroots kabaddi and unearth local talent in this ancient and noble discipline.
To the uninitiated – and probably to the initiated - kabaddi resembled nothing more than a bunch of barefooted blokes in retro Adidas t-shirts darting about in a confined, dusty space and pawing away at one another in an attempt to tag them while continually murmuring “kabaddi” in the same respiration against a backdrop of engrossed onlookers, sombre village elders and stray cattle. Think of a speed dating night at the Larkhall Community Centre and you get the idea.
As absorbing as it was straightforward, the simple, nip-and-tuck nature of kabaddi romanticised a more visceral, rough-and-tumble way of passing the time; the kind you got at school play time before the advent of stringent health and safety laws and the tyrannical rule of finger-wagging, high-visibility-jacket-wearing Enjoyment Neutralising Officers. Ah, the good old days. Now, a deep breath. Kabbadi, kabbadi, kabbadi, kabba …no, it’s no use.
DADDY cool. Sergio Garcia held a conference call the other day from a maternity ward just as his wife’s waters broke. It was still nowhere near as awkward as the time Celtic boss Kenny Dalglish hosted a press briefing in Bairds Bar when a pint glass broke. Garcia became the proud faither to Azalea, a baby daughter named after the 12th hole at Augusta where he made a vital par en route to winning his maiden major at last year’s Masters. With this in mind, we reckon Tory toff, Jacob Rees Mogg, perhaps got inspiration for his son, Sixtus, from a triple-bogey on the par-3 during a golf outing at Pumpherston?
POINTLESS puerility part 93. The tale surrounding the financial fillip bestowed upon Norwegian football club, Fotballaget Fart, has always, ahem, moved the diarist. Back in 2014, Fart’s highly successful women’s team was left a windfall of some £380,000 in the will of lifelong supporter, Erling Andreassen. Apparently, he wanted to lure Rafael Scheidt to the coaching staff.
NOT content with marathon running, Sir Mo Farah keeps trotting out the books too. His latest offering released this week is called Seaside Sprint, a wheezing palaver many Scottish football fans will have endured when they discover the toilets are jiggered at Gayfield. Farah’s other titles include Dinosaur Dash which, the diarist is informed, is not a pictorial record of various SFA board members rushing to the Hampden canteen.
THE behemoths of the World Strong Man scene, Brian Shaw and Hafthor Bjornsson, would have the calorie-counting zealots weeping into their quinoa. The duo’s fitness coach, Matt Wennings, recently told of the 12,000 calories a day they both consume while stating that a shopping list of sundries for the pair during a three-day training camp cost over $1000. They got through so many steaks, Wennings is apparently employing a more basic approach to the feeding process with Shaw and Bjornsson lying on their backs, opening their mouths and simply allowing an entire herd of cattle to stampede down their thrapples.
THE diarist has never been a gambling man. I thought a risky punt was something you’d do on a river in Cambridge during a flood warning. Over the past few days, the Cheltenham Festival has been thundering on with revered names of yesteryear like Arkle, Dawn Run and Desert Orchid evoking rousing reminiscences of equine endeavour while gambling slips have been torn up like Lester Piggott’s tax returns as that “dead cert” you heard about in the local ends up looking as lively as the Dead Sea. The diarist will up the gambling ante next weekend, though, with a reckless, ill-informed two quid each-way bet on Oxford at the Varsity Boat Race …
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