THERE has been a whispering campaign against me.
It was once a shouting campaign but it has gone on so long that everyone has become hoarse.
It is easy to identify the ringleader. He wears a red coat and top hat and carries a whip. And normally only the sports editor dresses like that.
His campaign includes the sort of techniques honed by the CIA: waterboarding, namely the throwing of cups of liquid to sluice the detritus from my desk; sharp questions about where I have been when I do not know where I am; and, most diabolically, diatribes about Hugh Murray, a former St Mirren player often described as a legend.
Firstly, St Mirren could only have legends in a match report written by Wagner. Secondly, Mr Murray, an estimable human being, is only a legend if said word was an acronym for Loadsa Effort Generally Efficient Notapure Diddy.
But the ringleader has gone over the big top. He invaded this column recently to state that I do not like cricket. As 10cc, who taught us so much about the minestrone qualities of life and the relative quantities of fan mail received by Minnie Mouse and the Pope, would point out: "I don't like cricket. I love it."
Bob Crampsey, the greatest of men and a cricket fanatic, once said he managed to interest his Lanarkshire pupils in cricket only after they discovered the ball was as hard as a Govan moneylender and liable to do as much damage.
My introduction to cricket owed more to another West of Scotland staple: alcohol. On arriving at the Stirling Observer in the 1970s, I was informed I would have to fill two broadsheet pages with cricket reports. I knew as much about cricket as I did about Persian poetry, though I had a better understanding of the latter, even in its original form.
So I did what I have continued to do in journalism: went to a match and asked someone else what was going on. In the days before all-day opening, the Williamfield ground had a small bar that dispensed alcoholic drinks with a pleasing urgency that suggested a meteorite was on its way. If asked when the bar closed, the steward would reply: "October."
The drinking ended badly but the love of cricket was nurtured and has grown. This exists in a pure form that is restricted to meaningless county matches and five-day Tests. The limited overs game is instantly forgettable. And if I want something forgettable in my life, I have my car keys.
I used to make a point of going to The Oval for the final Test of the summer every year but other matters have made this impossible, specifically the Scottish football season that starts so early I set an alarm for it. But I watch cricket on the box. This is uncomfortable but hey, I don't have a settee.
The other week I winced as Simon Kerrigan made his debut for England and bowled as if he had just been introduced to a cricket ball and suspected it was a hand grenade with the pin out.
It reminded me of the only time I played cricket. I was drafted - it was a windy day - into the Observer side for the County Sevens. I was only in because the team was a man short. Unfortunately, they were still a man short when I played.
The rules of the competition dictated I had to bowl one over. I would not say my spell was unduly elongated by wides and no balls but this was the only over in cricket history that started in blazing sunshine and threatened to be ended prematurely by bad light.
No-one knows precisely how many runs I conceded because the scoreboard only had space for three figures. But some indication of its full horror can be gained from the comment of a team-mate who said he had only witnessed such a number on the closing figure for the Footsie.
Fortunately, as with young Kerrigan's, my team did not lose, though we restricted our celebrations to a manly pat on the shoulder and declined to urinate on the pitch in the style of Kerrigan's team-mates.
It was the last time I played cricket. The whispering campaign against me in the Observer always included the words "never again".
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