By Stewart Weir
Saturday
It’s early morning, I’m trying to catch a train, and I’m not really paying much attention to who or what the car radio is tuned to – but the ears twitch when I hear the name Pete Waterfield mentioned.
No, he’s nowt to do with Rick Astley, Michaela Strachan or the Hit Man and Her. Pete is in fact Tom Daley’s synchronised diving partner.
Diving is a sport which as graceful as it looks, and is one where the competitors take a hellish pounding, as Pete and his former diving buddy Leon Taylor once explained quite graphically when I was in their company on a Red Bull jaunt at Silverstone. (They were there along with Jason Queally and Chris Hoy, the athletes among the assembled gathering playing an accident damage and injury version of Trump Cards, which the divers won hands down.)
Back to the radio report, and the female voice informs me that illness means Waterfield apparently could miss pairing-up with Daley for the “ten-kilometre synchronised dive event” in Shanghai.
10K? I wouldn’t fancy climbing the ladder, never mind freefalling from it…
Late afternoon and I get a tweet through to say Northern Ireland have beaten Scotland 4–3 in the snooker World Cup in Bangkok.
What the report didn’t say was that the Scots were World Cup holders, the defending champions, as they had been since 1996. In a fit of temper, I immediately delete Barry Hearn from my Christmas card list.
You see, if Hearn hadn’t come in with all his clever ideas on how to make snooker bigger and better, and had allowed the game to happily stagnate as it was under the previous regime at World Snooker, us Scots could have safely looked forward to another 15 years of not having to defend our status as champions of the world. Blah.
It also means that I don’t have a ready-made counter when I’m asked to name a sport where Scotland are world champions, as I don’t think elephant polo is yet recognised by the IOC…
Sunday
Wire snaps (for non-press folks, these are one-line tasters to breaking stories) are a source of amusement, especially when the same name might appear once or twice on the news agenda.
BBC News Glasgow & West announced: “Weir signs one-year Rangers deal.”
I suppose that’s a slightly different way for Ally McCoist and Craig Whyte to get a sniff of that £161 million EuroMillions cash rather than just sending a begging letter to Largs…
Meanwhile the Copa América continues, although you really have to ask just how serious some were taking it all as witnessed by this, which has to be one of the worst exhibitions of penalty taking ever.
Monday
Take a large measure of success, several (and various) alcoholic beverages and a dollop of sleep deprivation, mix together, allow to react overnight, then stick an interview microphone in first thing the next morning and sample the concoction. It will inevitably put a smile on your face.
You know what I mean if you’ve viewed Freddie Flintoff, vintage of 2005, post-Ashes triumph. So too Darren Clarke’s morning after the night before (which hadn’t yet ended) interview with BBC Radio 5 Live’s Iain Carter on his first full day as Open champion.
We all smiled and related to the big, middle-aged bloke with the belly, who likes his cigars and the odd beer, and who has overcome his share of real-life tragedy, who on Sunday triumphed over the best golfers and the worst of conditions to claim his first Major.
His interview on Monday morning with Beeb man Carter was one 5 Live played several times over. And, like his win the previous day, it never failed to make you smile…
Tuesday
Labour MP Tom Watson has been dogged in his pursuit of answers around the entire News Of The World phone-hacking scandal. He also managed to inject a moment of levity to the select committee hearing following the attack on Rupert Murdoch, when Mr Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng struck out at attacker Jonathan May-Bowles, otherwise known as Jonnie Marbles to his follower and friend.
"Your wife has a very good left hook," said Watson to Murdoch as proceedings reconvened. Nice line, wrong summation. It was in fact more of a right jab.
Still, Mr Watson showed with that one line he has all the makings of a a Shadow if not future Minister for Sport…
Wednesday
The partnership between Tiger Woods and caddie Steve Williams ends acrimoniously after 12 years and 13 Major titles, the golfer posting news of the divorce on his website.
Williams had obviously taken time to consider his response, before thinking "to hell with that" and going for the jugular.
"Realistically, I could look back and say I've wasted the last two years of my life because he's [Woods] played infrequently, he's been injured and he's played poorly," said Williams.
"I was prepared to hang in there through thick and thin, so I found the timing extraordinary."
That any caddie launches a salvo on a former employer is something in itself, given that he’ll have to resume bagman duties with someone new – although Williams has been seen next to Adam Scott of late.
Williams for a few years was the answer to the oft-asked trick question, "Name New Zealand’s highest-paid sportsman" – although I fail to see how you could be considered a sportsman just by showing your boss a certain club, or helping line up several birdies.
And anyway, wasn’t there someone else in Tiger’s entourage who also performed those duties, off-course?
Thursday
Couldn’t help but notice one of the tweets sent out by Graham Spiers, the Scottish sporting correspondent for the Times, when he referred to Śląsk Wroclaw, Dundee United’s European opponents, as "this Polish mob".
That will be the Polish mob that are still in Europe?
Friday
Sir Alex Ferguson has been splashing the cash this summer, almost £19m of it on Spanish U21 goalie David de Gea.
De Gea will hope to follow in the path of Edwin van der Sar and Peter Schmeichel as a winner and reliable shot-stopper, and less in the mould of Raimond van der Gouw, Mark Bosnich, Massimo Taibi, Fabien Barthez and – dare I say? – Jim Leighton.
And no doubt so will Sir Alex…
– Tweet Stewart Weir with thoughts and comments, @sweirz
Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
Related posts: