Thursday, July 12, 2007
Let's Hear it for Fat Monty
Colin Montgomerie is a troubling figure. There he is, this middle-aged bloke with an expanding waistline, and he's a sports star. This can't be right. Sports stars are lean, fit and generally young. But there's old Monty, looking like the chap next door washing his car in a pair of ill-advised shorts prior to going down the pub for a pint of lager, chicken in a basket and a Hamlet cigar in a diamond-patterned cardigan and cavalry twill slacks. I suppose it's golf that is the issue, a sport for people who can't be bothered to change their clothes. On the other hand, there used to be fat cricketers like Colin Cowdrey. So is fatness really a serious sporting handicap? Or has it just been eliminated by health Nazis? The consoling thought is that none of these super-thin girls would stand a chance against either Fat Monty or Chubby Col.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
"fat cricketers like Colin Cowdrey". Oh, Brian, it sounds so dismissive of one of the great cricketers, whose batting and slip fielding were all about glorious timing and hand/eye coordination; fatness was never a bar to success (same could be said of Inzamam and the late,potentially great, Colin Milburn). I get the impression with Monty, that his relative failure at the highest level, is more about suspect temperament and limited ability, than fatness.
ReplyDeleteLet's hear it too for Angel Cabrera, winner of the US Open and dedicated smoker of cigars, cigarettes and anything he can get his hands on. 'Other players have psychologists,' he says. 'I smoke.' That's the spirit!
ReplyDeleteColin Cowdrey was indeed a master, but it was painfully comic to see him on the rare occasions he had to run to the boundary after a ball - rather like a large seal attempting to make haste on dry land.
Yes, Nige, but the seal knows his preferred habitat is water; Cowdrey knew that outside an arch from second slip to short leg he was useless(self knowledge, as ever, is half the battle), hence the rarity of a seal sighting at Lords.
ReplyDeleteThe Fat Cricketer is a species sadly in decline in this age of ice baths, isotonic drinks and fielding practice.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked Lancashire's Ian Austin who retired a few years ago - a fine old-fashioned fatty.
There are still a few knocking about, the best being Inzaman, of course.
Of course, fatness is a handicap in most sports. A fat jockey? Gymnast? Sprinter? Cyclist? The list is endless. The only exceptions I can think of, apart from cricket, are darts, bowling and possibly snooker (Bill Rubberneck, the Canadian guy who took beta blockers and endless pints of beer, springs to mind). I am amused by the thought of, for instance, a fat jockey. It has comic potential.
ReplyDeletemartial artists can be fat. A layer of fat around the gut is all the more shielding against blows. Internal martial artists are often rotund, e.g. Bruce Frantzis. Anyone who can use mass (rather than mere muscle) against an adversary can make use of a pot belly.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course there's darts.
The amateur rugby front row forward will traditionally benefit from a generous physique. His afternoon mostly consists of waddling from one muddy sumo contest to another.
ReplyDeleteI suspect your blog post simply shows how far health Nazis have shifted our perception of fat from clearly extremely large - Robert Morley stylee - to mildly well-padded and, frankly, not fat at all. Mony isn't fat, nor was Colin Cowdrey, nor Beefy Botham or your typical prop forward.
ReplyDeleteWe've never done thin in this country. We like our heroes to be well-rounded, robust, independent characters who are the size nature intended them to be. Such men we can take to our hearts. The best the thin brigade can hope for is admiration and respect with, in the background, many aunts sighing that they "need feeding up".
I'm fat; could I be a sportsman?
ReplyDeleteOf course you could, Bloaty Boy - and here is a heroic role model for you. I'm surprised this legendary fuller-figured sportsman hasn't made it into the discussion before. You could do worse than adopt his motto: 'I don't mind what they call me, so long as they don't call me late for my lunch.'
ReplyDeleteBut there's old Monty, looking like the chap next door washing his car in a pair ill-advised shorts prior to going down the pub for a pint of lager, chicken in a basket and a Hamlet cigar in a diamond-patterned cardigan and cavalry twill slacks.
ReplyDeleteThis answers the question a couple of threads below, "You get paid for writing?": Not nearly enough,
Reading about "Fatty" Foulke has given me an idea. Some advocate the need for a salary cap to close the gap between the top four premiership clubs and the rest. How about a 'minimum fatty cap' which demands that all players must be at least 18 stones with a girth of 50 inches (But, even then, I suppose the cream will always rise to the top)?
ReplyDeleteThis idea may have at least one saving grace. In this age of foreign domination of our football, England would at last have a large enough pool of players to choose from. However, I suspect the USA would become the new Brazil.
Thanks, Ronin
ReplyDeleteCapital idea, Johntyh - if they took that up, I might even start watching football.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nige. I'm warming more and more to the idea. Just think, when the home side's centre forward misses a sitter from five yards, he can regard the cry of " you big fat f-----" as a term of endearment, possibly of love. The idea could spread; size zero may be banished from every catwalk, and replaced by size (well, how high do you want to go?). What price Monty to take every grand slam event next year ?
ReplyDeleteThe thing that really worries me about Monty is he is exactly the same age as me. But I think he looks and behaves much older - like he's part of the generation that did national service, probably in the RAF. Mr Appleyard has a more youthful dispostion than poor old Colin and he must be a good ten years older. And Monty's such a wonderful player, cursed by this nonsense of not winning a major (I mean, who really cares about Zach Johnson and Ben Curtis, who have?). A man born out of his time - belonging to an age before Tiger Woods, when majors were more winnable. The age of Brain Barnes and Peter Oosterhuis perhaps.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about Monty is that he epitomises the sporting loser. He's a golfer with masses of ability, but stupendously poor mind-management. During most rounds of golf, he seems to develop the deluded paranoid belief that the world (including spectators, cameramen, wifes, caddies, and the laws of physics) is conspiring against him.
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of a career.
Saw Monty on Through the Keyhole not long ago; up his stairs is a series of close-up photographs of hands - his own hands. They weren't in the slightest bit fat.
ReplyDeleteWell, he's not THAT fat, just for a sportsman...
ReplyDelete