Boat’,
Liberty.
The story of the commitment, the heartache, the joys and the pains of that epic victory are well documented in the controversial book
Born to Win
, written by, or at least ghost-written for, the
Australia II
skipper John Bertrand. Bertrand’s version of events is not entirely accepted by all parties concerned, and is, quite forgivably, a fairly free exercise in self-promotion. It is nevertheless an intriguing insight even for non-aficionados like myself, and the passages on sports psychology make quite revealing reading. It may come as a shock for example, that Australians, for all their ostentatiously brash, macho and assertive profile, apparently feel themselves deep-down to be second-best. The ‘tall poppy’ syndrome predominates in the Australian consciousness – a philosophy which advises: don’t be a tall poppy, don’t be head and shoulders above the rest; don’t strive for excellence; accept the position as second best; remember that the tall poppies are usually the ones that get their heads blown off. On reflection the Australians are certainly far from being alone in granting this attitude such widespread currency.
Bertrand explains how years of defeat had inured the Australians into
feeling
, and therefore into
being
, inferior to the Americans. From the beginning of the 1983 series, even though the American defender,
Liberty
, was in most conditions nowhere near as fast as
Australia II
, the Australian crew nevertheless had to overcome the psychological disadvantage of
expecting
to be beaten by the Yanks. How Bertrand melded his crew into a galvanised – if not invincible, then at least never-say-die – fighting force is perhaps a tract to which losing cricket captains Gatting and Border might usefully devote a few hours’ bedtime reading. The fundamental message of the biography is that many people often have to learn to believe in the idea of winning.
The cricket. It does crop up, a tedious leitmotif in my life, like period pains, hangovers, tax returns and publishing deadlines. But who on earth can be bothered, however, to watch England, in their present state of casual incompetence, playing woeful cricket against a team of virtual teenagers at the WACA (Western Australian Cricket Association), when ten minutes away in Freo (as in Freemantle) the town is knee-deep in multimillionaires? Twelve-metre racing, it is true, is generally perceived as a rich man’s sport, but that is not to say that all members of the respective crews are themselves loaded. On the contrary, many yachtsmen will find themselves seriously out of pocket by the end of this Cup series. Although the syndicates either challenging for, or defending the Auld Mug are positively awash with sponsors’ spondulicks, many of the men subjected to the back-breaking effort of sailing the boats are Olympic yachtsmen, and at pains to maintain their amateur status. Indeed Bertrand even maintains that the day he won the America’s Cup, he was stony broke. He resigned immediately, knowing full well that having reached his personal pinnacle of sporting achievement, there was only one inexorable way to go. He then hired himself a good promotions agent, and is currently commentating on the series for Channel 9 television.
On the free day, Phil and I went off to Freo to visit the British challenger,
White Crusader.
Why on earth the cricket team persists in calling these days ‘free’ is a mystery to me. The concept of a free day would seem to posit an element of work, commitment, sweat and toil on other de facto non-free days. Unfortunately, England’s performances to date, particularly against Queensland and Western Australia, have been characterised by nothing but the very opposite. There are three minor niggles with the current England touring side, wrote Martin Johnson of
The Independent
newspaper.
‘They can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.’ It is one of those brilliantly uncompromising one-liners he
Liberty.
The story of the commitment, the heartache, the joys and the pains of that epic victory are well documented in the controversial book
Born to Win
, written by, or at least ghost-written for, the
Australia II
skipper John Bertrand. Bertrand’s version of events is not entirely accepted by all parties concerned, and is, quite forgivably, a fairly free exercise in self-promotion. It is nevertheless an intriguing insight even for non-aficionados like myself, and the passages on sports psychology make quite revealing reading. It may come as a shock for example, that Australians, for all their ostentatiously brash, macho and assertive profile, apparently feel themselves deep-down to be second-best. The ‘tall poppy’ syndrome predominates in the Australian consciousness – a philosophy which advises: don’t be a tall poppy, don’t be head and shoulders above the rest; don’t strive for excellence; accept the position as second best; remember that the tall poppies are usually the ones that get their heads blown off. On reflection the Australians are certainly far from being alone in granting this attitude such widespread currency.
Bertrand explains how years of defeat had inured the Australians into
feeling
, and therefore into
being
, inferior to the Americans. From the beginning of the 1983 series, even though the American defender,
Liberty
, was in most conditions nowhere near as fast as
Australia II
, the Australian crew nevertheless had to overcome the psychological disadvantage of
expecting
to be beaten by the Yanks. How Bertrand melded his crew into a galvanised – if not invincible, then at least never-say-die – fighting force is perhaps a tract to which losing cricket captains Gatting and Border might usefully devote a few hours’ bedtime reading. The fundamental message of the biography is that many people often have to learn to believe in the idea of winning.
The cricket. It does crop up, a tedious leitmotif in my life, like period pains, hangovers, tax returns and publishing deadlines. But who on earth can be bothered, however, to watch England, in their present state of casual incompetence, playing woeful cricket against a team of virtual teenagers at the WACA (Western Australian Cricket Association), when ten minutes away in Freo (as in Freemantle) the town is knee-deep in multimillionaires? Twelve-metre racing, it is true, is generally perceived as a rich man’s sport, but that is not to say that all members of the respective crews are themselves loaded. On the contrary, many yachtsmen will find themselves seriously out of pocket by the end of this Cup series. Although the syndicates either challenging for, or defending the Auld Mug are positively awash with sponsors’ spondulicks, many of the men subjected to the back-breaking effort of sailing the boats are Olympic yachtsmen, and at pains to maintain their amateur status. Indeed Bertrand even maintains that the day he won the America’s Cup, he was stony broke. He resigned immediately, knowing full well that having reached his personal pinnacle of sporting achievement, there was only one inexorable way to go. He then hired himself a good promotions agent, and is currently commentating on the series for Channel 9 television.
On the free day, Phil and I went off to Freo to visit the British challenger,
White Crusader.
Why on earth the cricket team persists in calling these days ‘free’ is a mystery to me. The concept of a free day would seem to posit an element of work, commitment, sweat and toil on other de facto non-free days. Unfortunately, England’s performances to date, particularly against Queensland and Western Australia, have been characterised by nothing but the very opposite. There are three minor niggles with the current England touring side, wrote Martin Johnson of
The Independent
newspaper.
‘They can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field.’ It is one of those brilliantly uncompromising one-liners he
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