Athletes take leaf out of England song book
BRITISH athletes have been team bonding before the World Championships start in London on Friday by trying to insert pop song lyrics into their TV interviews.
The mischievous stunt, first used by England footballers at the 1998 World Cup in France, was the suggestion of the British Athletics communications team to keep everyone engaged during often fraught media days at a Paris training camp.
Sprinter Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake sneaked the words ‘Can’t stop, won’t stop moving, it’s like I got this music in my mind’ from Taylor Swift’s
Shake It Off into one of his answers. And Olympic bronze medallist Asha Philip used ‘I’m going to shine bright like a diamond’ from Rihanna’s Diamonds.
There were lots more, with the GB team loving it that none of the TV crews realised what was going on during the week.
At France 98, England players each put in £100 to see who could name the most song titles. Tony Adams won with four before the BBC’s Ray Stubbs caught on. JUST
a week after England won the women’s cricket World Cup to help inspire participation, only hopeless Sky cricket pundit Shane Warne could comment as the camera panned across a group of women in The Oval crowd: ‘Sure a few of them have been dragged along by hubby.’ Social media were quickly on Warne’s case. LANCASHIRE’S bizarre selfappointment of 60-year-old board member Paul Allott (right) as director of cricket keeps Old Trafford’s old-age policy on track. The county, stuffed with Kolpak players to the detriment of young English talent, prefer to select 42-year-old Shivnarine Chanderpaul, having been turned down by Mahela Jayawardene, 40. Allott, who will have to spend less time on the golf course, must also sort out whether England prospect Haseeb Hameed has lost all form because his father’s advice contradicts what England and Lancashire coaches are telling him. IT
IS not the easiest times for cricket books, so credit to Hodder & Stoughton for commissioning former England cricketer turned writer Derek Pringle to produce a study of cricket in the 1980s — regarded as the last decade for free spirits such as Sir Ian Botham and David Gower before coaching and protein shakes took over.