may have to learn to live with, especially if the tides of cricketing fortune turn. For the sake of historical accuracy, however, it must be admitted that the day Martin penned that obituary, it was all absolutely and incontrovertibly true. Most worrying in the England camp is the continuing lack of form demonstrated by David Gower. In the match against Perth he was dismissed twice without managing to trouble the scoreboard. Ever-sympathetic to a man in trauma, the team’s in-house sports psychologists have nicknamed the hapless former captain ‘Run-Glut’.
Fremantle is a charming little town, some thirty minutes away from Perth on the freeway. It has certainly become a hive of cosmopolitan activity since the thirteen challenging syndicates from six different nations arrived. Apart from the Australian defenders of the Cup, there are challengers from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, France and Italy, and each has left its nationalistic imprint on the place. Several syndicates, for example, have constituted their own clubs. The Royal Thames Yacht Club, that is to say, the 1987 British challenger for the America’s Cup, has organised for itself and privileged guests a Crusade Club (after the syndicate’s yachts
Crusader 1
and
II).
It is a delightfully, terribly, terribly, quintessentially English gentlemen’s club, more in place in Pall Mall, London, than Fremantle, Western Australia. Two large, varnished oak doors, a highly polished brass plate discreetly proclaiming its identity and an illuminated bell are its only concessions to ostentation in a row of otherwise nondescript terraced houses. Inside, you could well be on British soil. There is a royal-blue fitted carpet, with an anchor motif, and an abundance of brass and oak. Blazers and cravats seem very much to be the order of the day, although depressed sailors drowning their day’s maritime sorrows (on the night we were there it happened to be the badly beaten South Australia syndicate), are permitted less formal attire.
Not all syndicates have set up private clubs, although the ever flash and extrovert Italians lead the field. The Costa Smeralda Yacht Club, Consorzio Azzurra, whose major sponsors include Giovanni Agnelli (he of Fiat fame) and His Highness the Aga Khan, are certainly not to be outdone. The Aga Khan, finding nowhere sufficiently be-Michelin-starred in Fremantle to accommodate his sophisticated billionaire tastes, created his own restaurant, Le Maschere, where the food is as overpriced as it is proportionately underwhelming. He has also renovated, in birthday cake icing pinks and whites, a hotel which belongs to his celebrated CIGA chain of expensive watering holes.
There is no shortage of Italians in Australia – indeed after Poms and Greeks they form the largest expatriate population. However, the good burghers of Freo have not taken quite as warmly to the Costa Smeralda super-suave sophisticates as they have to the other Italian contingent, the Italia syndicate. This syndicate is heavily sponsored by Gucci heir, Maurizio Gucci, and is beloved by all for being so totally, utterly and uncompromisingly Italian. During the launch of the syndicate’s newest, boat,
Italia II
, in La Spezia, for instance, a crane dropped on the multimillion-lira creation and irretrievably sank it. Their spokesman, phlegmatic for anyone under the circumstances, but particularly so for an Italian, a race which as all we Anglo-Saxons know is readily given to histrionics and hyperbolics at the merest drop of a
cappello
, commented that the accident had obviously delayed the yacht’s development. Sadly, it was never salvaged.
A few weeks later, on a lay day, a few of the crew, dressed up to the nines in all their Gucci-sponsored designer gear, went out sightseeing in their brand new Alfa Romeo sports car. Hurtling around a blind corner, very much
all’italiano
, they ran straight into a huge kangaroo. Leaping out of their somewhat dented vehicle,
Fremantle is a charming little town, some thirty minutes away from Perth on the freeway. It has certainly become a hive of cosmopolitan activity since the thirteen challenging syndicates from six different nations arrived. Apart from the Australian defenders of the Cup, there are challengers from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, France and Italy, and each has left its nationalistic imprint on the place. Several syndicates, for example, have constituted their own clubs. The Royal Thames Yacht Club, that is to say, the 1987 British challenger for the America’s Cup, has organised for itself and privileged guests a Crusade Club (after the syndicate’s yachts
Crusader 1
and
II).
It is a delightfully, terribly, terribly, quintessentially English gentlemen’s club, more in place in Pall Mall, London, than Fremantle, Western Australia. Two large, varnished oak doors, a highly polished brass plate discreetly proclaiming its identity and an illuminated bell are its only concessions to ostentation in a row of otherwise nondescript terraced houses. Inside, you could well be on British soil. There is a royal-blue fitted carpet, with an anchor motif, and an abundance of brass and oak. Blazers and cravats seem very much to be the order of the day, although depressed sailors drowning their day’s maritime sorrows (on the night we were there it happened to be the badly beaten South Australia syndicate), are permitted less formal attire.
Not all syndicates have set up private clubs, although the ever flash and extrovert Italians lead the field. The Costa Smeralda Yacht Club, Consorzio Azzurra, whose major sponsors include Giovanni Agnelli (he of Fiat fame) and His Highness the Aga Khan, are certainly not to be outdone. The Aga Khan, finding nowhere sufficiently be-Michelin-starred in Fremantle to accommodate his sophisticated billionaire tastes, created his own restaurant, Le Maschere, where the food is as overpriced as it is proportionately underwhelming. He has also renovated, in birthday cake icing pinks and whites, a hotel which belongs to his celebrated CIGA chain of expensive watering holes.
There is no shortage of Italians in Australia – indeed after Poms and Greeks they form the largest expatriate population. However, the good burghers of Freo have not taken quite as warmly to the Costa Smeralda super-suave sophisticates as they have to the other Italian contingent, the Italia syndicate. This syndicate is heavily sponsored by Gucci heir, Maurizio Gucci, and is beloved by all for being so totally, utterly and uncompromisingly Italian. During the launch of the syndicate’s newest, boat,
Italia II
, in La Spezia, for instance, a crane dropped on the multimillion-lira creation and irretrievably sank it. Their spokesman, phlegmatic for anyone under the circumstances, but particularly so for an Italian, a race which as all we Anglo-Saxons know is readily given to histrionics and hyperbolics at the merest drop of a
cappello
, commented that the accident had obviously delayed the yacht’s development. Sadly, it was never salvaged.
A few weeks later, on a lay day, a few of the crew, dressed up to the nines in all their Gucci-sponsored designer gear, went out sightseeing in their brand new Alfa Romeo sports car. Hurtling around a blind corner, very much
all’italiano
, they ran straight into a huge kangaroo. Leaping out of their somewhat dented vehicle,
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