Who's the daddy? The one not calling his kids Gay Meadow

TV Week: Farmer's walk. Viking press. Truck pull. Beer barrel lift

TV Week: Farmer's walk. Viking press. Truck pull. Beer barrel lift. It might be what you get up to on your winding way home from a social evening but these are, in fact, disciplines in the World Strongman Cup, the latest round of which, held in a Moscow car-park, Sky Sports shared with us yesterday. Exclusively.

The only excuse that can be offered for watching this muscle-fest is that there was an Irish interest in the shape - and Lordy, what a shape - of 30-stone Glenn Ross from County Down, vital statistics: 63 inch chest, 24 inch neck, 35 inch thighs, 24.5 inch biceps. And waistline? Ah now, some measuring tapes just ain't long enough.

The bandwagon-hoppers really only became aware of Glenn, who's been around for many a long year, when he lifted three Citröen Saxos off the ground at the 2003 Hillsborough Oyster Festival.

While the red mist descends on most drivers when they can't find a parking space, Glenn stays cool and just deals with the botheration in a practical manner.

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He's what we Strongman aficionados call a "character". Like when he lifts something mad heavy he shouts "who's the Daddy?".

So you shout back, at your telly screen, "You're the Daddy!".

It's great craic. You just hope your neighbour isn't passing the window at the time.

So, "who's the Daddy?" asked Glenn, after he'd flipped over a huge tyre a few times.

We may not be able to look him in the biceps again, but honesty prevailed: "Ralf Ber's the Daddy," we told him, with heavy hearts.

Ralf didn't actually win the competition, but his performance in the bus-pull section was positively stirring. The commentator had told us the bus, which the competitors had to pull up three per cent of a hill was too heavy, at 16 tons, and although "the athletes had a chat with the judges about this" they decided to get on with it - because that's the kind of Strongmen they are.

But even Ralf, "a bus-pull specialist", struggled.

"How long has it been since you've seen Ralf move that slowly towing a bus," the commentator asked. In all honesty, we couldn't give an answer.

Ralf, though, roared on by frenzied cheerleaders, gave his all, to the point where his distressingly clingy rubber body suit, designed for men more of a Paolo Maldini shape, was "baring the brunt" of his exertions, as our commentator so delicately put it.

One more surge and that body suit would have burst like a balloon and Ralf would have landed in the suburbs of west Santiago.

But he surrendered at around 0.2 per cent of the hill, collapsing into a pool of his own flesh. The man sitting in the bus driver's seat, we noticed, smiled, leaving us wondering if the fecker had the hand-break on all the time.

Like the vote in Florida you just can't be sure about anything any more. But we suspected our Ralf had been done.

Who's the Daddy? Well, apart from Ralf, Denis Hickie's the Daddy.

"George Hook will now tell you how Hickie can score a try in a telephone kiosk," said Tom McGurk at half-time in Saturday's Leinster v Bath game.

George agreed Hickie's first-half try was rather good, but he never actually explained the telephone kiosk thing. We could only assume it meant Hickie entered a telephone kiosk before the game, changed into his gear, came out with a large "S" on his chest and proceeded to do his try-scoring thing.

SuperHickieman, though, was one of the few bright Leinster sparks in the first half, according to George, who suggested the big problem "is that the Ferraris in the backs are being driven by the Ladas in the forwards".

And you know the old chestnut: a man goes into a garage and says "can I have a hub cap for my Lada?"

And the garage man says, "Okay, seems like a fair swap."

But Leinster's hub caps did just fine in the second half, prompting Tom to suggest George be sacked because he'd got it "completely wrong".

On past experience all Leinster need to progress in this competition is for George to continue to doubt them (Copyright: Munster).

John Peel, the DJ, was very definitely a Ferrari. Football Focus paid tribute to him on Saturday, mentioning his devotion to Liverpool FC. Two of his three children were christened Alexandra Mary Anfield and William Robert Anfield Ravenscroft.

"This is a source of great embarrassment to them," said Peel in an interview from a few years back, "but as I always point out to them I could have been a Shrewsbury Town supporter."

Their home ground? Gay Meadow.

Mary Hannigan

Mary Hannigan

Mary Hannigan is a sports writer with The Irish Times