Blessed summer / cursed summer

Sport Review #265

I trust you have enjoyed a restful and fruitful Sport Review-free holiday period.

Cursed - rain at the cricket. I was a Very Bad Cricket Fan this summer, blessed to stay a kilometre or so from the magnificent Bay Oval, but unfortunately unmotivated to support the BLACKCAPS when the met service app was predicting wet grass, no shelter and frustrating delays. Zero commitment, and quite honestly zero platform to even have a sports newsletter.

Blessed - Bay Oval silos. There, I said it.

Blessed - Premier League. The perfect summer sport. Happens early so you can get up and zone out in front of the telly with your coffee and cornflakes and have the rest of the day still free to, um, sit on the couch and that. It’s entertaining, well produced, the league is wide open and if you support North London’s Tottenham Hotspur, you are likely to win the league.

Cursed - milkshakes. Will you get a cold ice cream-enhanced treat that climbs the straw like a tow headed prince rescuing Rapunzel that lasts several kilometres down the road on your holiday road trip, or will you get a warm, half hearted effort that a chocolate Primo would be embarrassed by? It’s honestly a lottery out there team, and even dairies that have previously served you well change winning formulas at the drop of a hat and leave you unsatisfied in the worst way. If you are in the area, try the ice cream place on the corner of the Mangawhai village shops and get the two scoop super shake, tell them Sport Review sent you. And let me know what happens.

Blessed - real fruit ice creams. Never had a bad one.

Blessed - reading books. You don’t need some idiot in your email telling you how good it is to read a book, but in this mixed up smartphone-and-work-from-home-and-holiday-madness-world, the quiet time soaking up stories made things feel very calm. Anyway, it’s bloody easy reading in late December and early January or in the camp ground, the trick is to keep it going into the working year. Let’s see.

Blessed and also potentially quite cursed - Test cricket. It’s amazing, and we’ve seen the very best in the West Indies win and India - England series, but we’re about to be served up a depressingly intriguing series between us and the South African reserves while their actual team plays in some T20-who-gives-a-shit TV content / cash / cricket league. It’s a no-win situation that makes a mockery of our summer’s cricket here. Sure, I understand the drivers that led us here but I am sorry, as a fan, this is fucked.

Blessed - camping. We got over the trauma of having to leave last year’s trip to go home and manage having our bathroom flood by having a lovely Anniversary weekend holiday at the magnificent Waipu Cove. Sure, it’s a pain in the arse making your gear list and packing the car, but when you get there and can just do beach / beers / late night whiskey and talking shit, it’s all worth it.

Blessed - dogs. Just look.

Thanks for reading - Richard

This holiday's best NZ sport content

Seamus and Steve nailed it talking to All White / All Birds founder Tim Brown - so many great stories,

Just a lovely piece of writing from Canterbury All Black Norm Maxwell on his friendship with groundsman Kevi and his mate Raymond [Stuff]

One day I was arranging to collect my son’s junior team gear bag off the local cricket club’s manager with the broad South African accent, the next he’s doing cartwheels for the Auckland Aces. Here’s how cricket here has been changed by the steady steam of talent and cricket talent and culture from South Africa [Listener]

Tremendous feature length doco on Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ruamata, the first māori immersion school to play in the national Rankin Cup [RNZ]

Incredible TradeMe cable knit success flex from Twitter’s Mark Currie.

Video nasty

Accurate Generation X portrayal.

Long read

The incredible story of one man and his stereo. Hope he’s got some decent records [Washington Post]

Recommendation 

I spent a lot of the break smashing through English novelist Jonathan Coe’s Rotter’s Club / Closed Circle / Middle England trilogy, tracing a group of friends and family’s shared history through the 70’s and Margret Thatcher’s election to the Tony Blair era and entering the Iraq war to the London Olympics and Brexit. It’s really fantastic stuff, and a huge recommendation from me, here’s a small taste.