JUDD’S WEIRD NEW WORLD
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“I’VE got three joyous words for you,” exclaimed ITV4 commentator Phil Yates after Kojak had finished yesterday afternoon.
What could they be? Vaccine signed off? Wet markets banned? No. Bigger than all these. “Snooker is back!”
And for snooker, read televised live sport in the UK.
Two hours after the first race at Newcastle had successfully delivered the return of outdoor sport, indoor action was back, too, from a deserted Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.
Well, not quite deserted. There were the players – Judd Trump and David Grace on one table and Jak Jones and Stuart Carrington on the other – plus a referee and a couple of cameramen for each. And Yates and his side-kick Dominic Dale in the commentary box. And a grinning lad in shorts with kitchen roll and some disinfectant wiping down the tables between frames.
But other than that the auditorium was a sealed-off echo chamber.
Even the Championship League host Jill Douglas was operating from home, as were analysts Neal Foulds and Stephen Hendry, who looked like he had caught too ■
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JUDD TRUMP admitted last night: ‘‘It’s snooker… but not as we know it!’’
The world No.1 and reigning world champion played on day one of the game’s return yesterday – the Championship League in Milton Keynes – after negative tests for Covid-19.
Trump was caught out by new health and safety measures when he reached for a nonexistent rest – with separate cleaned equipment now placed by players’ chairs.
Isolation in the on-site hotel, much of the sun on a forehead the colour of the pack.
Trump has gained a couple of inches during lockdown with the barbers out of bounds but nothing looked different on the table for the world champion after an 11-week gap between frames as he whitewashed the world No.85.
What was more of a problem was remembering to pick up his own individual rest himself and not shaking hands at the end of the match. He awkwardly packed his cue away in silence instead. Welcome to the new normal.
Still, at least Trump did have to play in a mask.
Over at Newcastle the jockeys were saddled up in full facewear for the return of British racing behind closed doors.
A couple of them – Ben Robinson and Tony Hamilton – even kept them on for their postrace interviews on Sky Sports.
The jockeys had stood on painted spots two metres apart in the parade ring to await the entrance of mounts whose dubious quality might have been of more interest to the rag and bone man in normal circumstances.
Yesterday, after such a wait, they resembled a fleet of Frankels.
To see the horses in full flow again not long an arena without a crowd, masks and hand sanitiser everywhere were all part of a surreal experience.
Trump (inset), who beat David Grace 3-0, said: “It’s great to be back because I know how much has gone into getting this on and making it safe.
“Of course it is all very weird and different. On arrival here you were locked away from anyone else. You at a sun-scorched Gosforth Park was a warming and uplifting sight.
Elsewhere across the networks, Ray Parlour was nodding one in for Arsenal and Graham Dilley was sending an over down against Australia as the repeats rolled on. But here was up-to-the-minute, unpredictable sport unfolding in front of our eyes again.
Unscripted means not always what you may have wanted.
Along with the thrill of the jet hooves of Frankly Darling – a genuine member of the Frankel fleet – there was the sad death of December Second in the feature race. Escapism has its trail of tears too.
There have been more important things going on its absence – there still are – but whatever the pecking order of priorities, it isn’t wrong to have missed live sport.
Snooker and the horses – or the greyhounds which also returned yesterday – might not pack the punch of the Premier League, but they vividly reflect sport’s contrasting landscape and it was great to see them back.
“Emotional” is how Yates described his mood yesterday. It was okay to feel like that. have your swab test – which I found horrendous and very uncomfortable – then you are alone in your room until the results come back. “Only when you get that negative test are you allowed to be around other people, socially distanced of course. “It is also different when you’re playing, with the rests in different positions back at our chairs. ‘‘That caught me out a couple of times during the match.”