Players who take flight from flying:DENNIS BERGKAMP drew the rather appropriate nickname of the Non-Flying Dutchman due to his disambiguation, aerophobia, aviatophobia, aviophobia or pteromechanophobia.
That’s a fear of flying to you and me.
Bergkamp’s “condition” stemmed from an incident with the Dutch national side at the 1994 World Cup, where the engine of the plane cut out during flight.
Following the incident the Dutch maestro decided that soaring on the pitch was as high as he would go and suggested that the anxiety over the flights would significantly affect his performances. That was hugely limiting on his ability to play in away matches in European competition for Arsenal and with the Dutch national side. In some cases he’d travel overland by car or train, however the logistics of this often forced him to miss the game.
Some Arsenal fans believe Bergkamp cost their team a Uefa Cup first-round tie in 1997 when he refused to fly to play in the away leg in Salonika, Greece. Arsenal lost the game 1-0, and could only draw the return match at Highbury 1-1.
Ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky was another who had a great fear of airplanes early in his career and would rely on his room-mate Ace Bailey to calm him down as the plane was taking off.
It would be tragically ironic that Ace would later perish on one of the planes involved in the 9/11 atrocity.
Luckily none of the current Ireland rugby squad has any such phobia and enjoyed the flight to New Zealand this week. But not so Catalin Fercu, the second highest try scorer in Romanian rugby history.
This week Fercu withdrew from the Romanian squad, who are in a pool with Scotland and England, because of his fear of flying.
The winger has scored 22 tries from 51 matches and played in the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France.
However, he couldn’t be persuaded to take the 40-hour journey to the land of the long/thin white cloud and was finally replaced by the delightfully-named Adrian Apostol.
Deley dropped as he puts foot in mouth
CHANNEL 4's coverage of the World Athletics Championships was so frequently holed below the water line recently that they quietly dropped presenter Ortis Deley for his gaffes. The former presenter of The Gadget Showcame up with up the men's 100m hurdles never before seen at a world athletics event (110m hurdles please, 100m hurdles for women), and told viewers how South Africa's Oscar Pistorious was going to make history by running in the 400m hurdles, when the paralympic champion actually runs in the 400m flat.
We have become so used to sports gaffes there is an industry now in compiling lists of the best. Many arrive from the mouths of commentators who actually know about what they are talking about but are caught up in the moment. Thank you John Motson: “And what a time to score. 22 minutes gone,” or “And Seaman, just like an oak falling, manages to change direction.” Glen Hoddle, who according the former Manchester United player Gary Neville, asked his England team to walk around the pitch anti-clockwise before a match against Argentina to create positive energy, observed that “75 per cent of what happens in Paul Gascoigne’s life is fiction”.
Deley’s co presenter and former Olympic Champion Michael Johnson, who won four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships medals in 200m and 400m track running, was asked by his colleague whether he had ever done the pole vault!
Morgan's dismissal solves argument
MIKE Atherton posed a question this week, which was prompted by the recent rain-interrupted ODI match at Castle Avenue between Ireland and England.
The former England cricket team captain questioned the authenticity of the match as a contest between two international sides.
We’ve been down this road before about the nature of representing a country, the issues of fealty and belonging.
But Atherton correctly pointed out that two players, Eoin Morgan (pictured) and Ed Joyce, had both played for two countries and the two they had played for were now playing each other. Morgan, who has played for Ireland captained England while Joyce, who has played for England togged out in green.
How Irish is that? The regular spillage around Clontarf on the day made it miserable for the uncovered spectators and the match was reduced as a result. But the occasion held most people in the ground until the end.
The biggest roar of the day, however, was when Morgan departed just before lunch, indisputably proving that the Irishman is indeed English.
Not-so-flush umpires strike back
TOP Irish umpire Fergus Murphy is not at the US Open in Flushing Meadow this year as he is among approximately half of the umpires who decided not to come to the final Slam of the year.
Far from jetting around the world in first-class seats, umpires find themselves in a pay dispute with the US organisers, whose tournament was said to draw in €260 million in economic benefit to New York last year. It has been reported the US Open offers €155 a day but umpires were told this year it would be reduced by 30 per cent for tax purposes.
At the Australian Open, where there is also a night session umpires receive 25 per cent extra.
“We’ve heard they spend more on the flower arrangements than they do on officiating,” observed one disgruntled official. Oooh.
Rozza and Wozza swing in to action
LET’S JUST say there is some history here. Maybe it’s the nature of the individual sport, the mutual understanding of the needs, anxieties and pressures that come to bear going down the straight in the Masters at Augusta or tossing the ball for a first serve on Centre Court on the last day of Wimbledon fortnight.
Rory McIlroy and Caroline Wozniacki – Rozza and Wozza – have become quite an item with the Irishman straddling the globe breaking all sorts of air-mile records to make tennis events in support of the world number one tennis player’s quest for her first major, something Rozza knows all about.
The happy couple were last seen in New Haven, Connecticut, prior to the US Open and the usually coy Rozza planted a kiss on the Danish princess much to the approval of the Yale football team who were at the final en mass. The two even did a joint interview on ESPN after Wozza won the tournament before Rozza jetted out to Crans-Sur-Sierre, Switzerland for this weekend’s event in.
But Rozza and Wozza must know that they are treading on well-worn ground. Martina Hingis went cross country, so to speak, to nab Spanish golfing matador Sergio Garcia at the 2002 Australian Open. In 1997, the Swiss Miss had become the youngest player to achieve a world ranking of number one at 16 years and three months. Then she started talking and never shut up.
She made fun of gay players (they’re half men), called being black an advantage, and said that Steffi Graf was old and past her prime, a year after coughing up the French Open title to her.
In 2005, when things were going half-decent, Hingis tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon and received a two-year ban. Hell, Sergio wasn’t responsible for all that.
There was also the coming together of golfer Adam Scott, the Australian of recent good form and the smouldering Serbian former Roland Garros champion, Ana Ivanovic, of not such good recent form.
Ivanovic hasn’t troubled many top tennis players of late or threatened the final few days of a Grand Slam although seeded 16 in New York she was given a walkover for a place in the third round on Thursday.
When the Great White Shark, Greg Norman, made a run in July 2008 at the British Open, we watched the fairytale unfold. For Australians it was replaced by an all too familiar tale as Norman’s hopes of an unlikely third British Open title disappeared in a blur of final round bogeys at Royal Birkdale. (Three cheers for Pádraig Harrington).
And who was there at the end of the round to console him but the waspish, multiple Grand Slam champion Chris Evert. Norman referred to Evert as his rock and they got married and 15 months later they broke up.
So what is the moral of the tale of tennis and golf and where does it all leave Rozza and Wozza? Well Rozza shot a 65 and 69 to tie for the lead after two rounds, which just shows what a little lurvv can do for a golf swing.
Top-seed Wozza, meanwhile, scalped Nuria Llagostera Vives 6-3, 6-1 in her first round match in Flushing Meadow. As we disrespectfully say in the business, the Spaniard’s name was longer than her stay in the tournament. Rozza and Wozza, rock on.
