#EdGoesToRonto- We're not at St Andrew's anymore, Toto...

This is the second blog in the #EdGoesToRonto series, detailing the trials and tribulations of my Year Abroad at the University of Toronto. The first blog, recording the first week, can be found here.

It is ten minutes from the end of the game. Toronto Argonauts, my adopted 'football' team for the night, have meekly surrendered a healthy lead and now trail by a considerable margin to Montreal Alouettes, some cocky upstarts from out of town. Instead of yelling 'fucking rubbish lads', slamming seats up and marching out with a quick 'wanker' sign to the opposition supporters, I pick up my free t-shirt, thunder-sticks and miniature football and amble towards the exit, without a minute's thought to the result of the game.

It's live sport Jim, but not as we know it.

***

So I'd given in. Less than five days since I'd arrived in Toronto, I was sat watching sport in an actual stadium. Far from simply being a drastic solution to numbing the boredom of the international break, this was a complimentary ticket with my 'Frosh' pack. The game in question, taking place at the multi-purpose Rogers' Centre near the harbour, was Toronto Argonauts vs Montreal Alouettes, in the Canadian Football League.

I know very little about American football, and try as I might, I don't really think it's a particularly entertaining sport. Multiple stoppages, thousands of rules and a necessity for padded equipment make it about as far away from soccer as possible, which perhaps explains my reluctance to embrace it.

The spectacle itself was, however, immensely enjoyable. Fan interaction, blaring music and barely a moment's peace were enough to keep me entertained for a good majority of the duration, despite hardly paying any attention to the action on the field.

Birmingham City, my team going through severely testing times, have experimented greatly with this Americanised idea of the 'match-day experience' in recent times, and it has, truth be told, been met with a considerable amount of opposition. There are those rugged supporters of days gone by who highly resent the idea of a 'welcoming' stadium, and I completely agree with them. I can't entirely put my finger on why, but I don't particularly like the idea of a family of four wandering up to the ground in full away replica kits and being welcomed with a foam finger and a picture with a bloke in a mascot suit.

No danger of that here, in this futuristic, mega-stadium. When Montreal scored, I looked around, expecting to see away fans jumping up and down and giving it what we call in England 'The Big-Un' to the home fans.

Not an away fan in sight. My first instinct was to stand up and belt out 'shit province, no fans', but when you consider it's roughly 600km from Toronto to Montreal, and I can't be bothered to travel any further than Leicester for an away game these days, it's probably understandable. As a most partisan sports fan, it made for a truly bizarre atmosphere. I needed somewhere to direct my ire, someone to yell 'F*CK OFF BACK TO QUEBEC' at, and yet I found nothing. I shouted into the air, but nothing came back.

As a rule, English football doesn't do external entertainment. You get your ninety minutes, and if you're lucky, that'll be half-decent. If you want something else, son, go to the theatre. Or, alternatively, support a 'family club', like Charlton, or Norwich. Opening ceremonies and flag waving by attractive models in body-suits is derided and cast aside as 'naff' or 'artificial', and the most entertaining thing that's ever happened at half time was when thirty thousand Brummies booed an on-pitch marriage proposal. We once had a competition where you had to fire a football at a shed, but that was quickly ditched when the club realised the name- On me Shed son!- was the best part of the game. By far.

Not so, in this cavalcade of North American wonder. A bizarre game of musical chairs took place at half time which quickly descended into an on-pitch scrum. Someone chased a bloke dressed as a coffee cup round the pitch midway through the half, whilst blindfolded. A family of squirrels was released into the stand, and the first person to catch one won a lifetime's supply of nuts.

Okay, I made the last one up, but you get the impression. It's a Knockout looked like a serious documentary about the dangers of inflatables compared to this. At one point, the big screen showed a picture-perfect family of four happily smiling and waving, the newly crowned 'Argonauts Family of the Game'. I'm sure a camera or big screen probably caught me, my Dad and my Great-Uncle at the Blues together once, but it probably screamed 'years of disappointment and a Vitamin D deficiency' rather than 'Family of the Game'.

All in, you could have a half-time show featuring Michael Jackson, Elvis and The Beatles, and if we lost 1-0 to Barnsley, I'd still come away feeling miserable. Conversely, when I was 6, and went to my first game, I didn't care what the result was as long as I got a hot dog and a lollipop. Luckily for the 'match-day experience', as far as American/Canadian Football goes, I'm closer to bright-eyed infancy than grizzled pessimism.

So...

Let's go Argo's, let's go *clap clap*
Let's go Argo's, let's go *clap clap*

#EdGoesToRonto- The First Few Days

This will most likely be a monthly or perhaps even more sporadic blog, detailing various trials and tribulations of my Year Abroad at the University of Toronto. WARNING: Some parts have been written whilst jetlagged, at 6am. 

Wednesday 28th August
As ever, the first insight into Canada that I am afforded is their customs system. I'm quite nervous about this- partly because I'm not even sure I have the right documentation, and partly because I've been stood in the queue for ninety minutes, whilst officials pore over the papers of everybody else in front of me. I get called to the front by the lady at one of the booths...

'Edward.... Beautiful British name'.
 Al Murray, is that you?
'They should have called the Royal Baby Prince Edward'.
Am I being let in? Nervous laughter should endear myself.
'Ha. Ha. It gets shortened a lot though, my name'.
'Are you an Ed, or an Eddy, or a Ted?'
Can't I just have my papers back? I don't feel I need to reach nickname levels of chat with a customs officer.
'There you go... 'Edward'. Enjoy your time in Canada'.

This is a bizarre theme. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to what people say when they discover where you're from. So far I've had two discussions on the Royal Baby, one on cricket, one on the break-up of Oasis, and several on the 'EPL'.

When I finally get to the baggage carousel, my suitcase has been dumped in a pile with arrivals from Hong Kong, which is definitely not where I came from.

My hotel appears to be in the middle of a Chinese shopping centre, which may or may not be a euphemism for 'brothel'. I have to walk from the lobby through the 'Relaxation Zone' to my room every night, so I'll leave you to decide that one. There also seems to be a bizarre number of people with orthopaedic shoes wandering about the hotel, but I'm not sure if there's a connection there.

I found the university, despite my terrible affliction whereby I can barely read a map, and do my best to stay awake until it's an acceptable hour to go to bed.

I manage until 8:30.

Thursday 29th August
After waking up in the middle of the night for the fourth time, I take the advice of Twitter and go and explore the city at the crack of dawn. It's not quite 'the city that never sleeps', but it's thriving nonetheless. From certain angles, the city looks like it belongs in the future, but then there's also a fair amount of inequality, particularly in the Chinatown district, which is where my hotel resides.

Things don't really get going, both in terms of this blog, and the university experience, until Monday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are tough, in all honesty. Deep down, we all knew there would be parts of the Year Abroad that would test us to our limits, encompassing anything from homesickness to navigating the token dispenser on the subway. And as a sensitive soul, I'm no different. I've always craved routine, things to do, people to see, and once I've sorted the mundane stuff such as insurance, I'm left twiddling my thumbs a little bit.

Sunday 1st September
Moved into my house today. I don't think there'll be a tougher moment on this Year Abroad than when I first saw my room. A dirty (but admittedly huge), graffiti-d, smelly basement with a bin bag instead of a curtain and pipes sticking out of the wall like a Soviet Union interrogation chamber wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I applied to the accommodation, and it took a while to compose myself.

Like the Brit I am, I soldiered on, plastering the walls with photos of the nearest and dearest, covering the graffiti, and making plans for some nice net curtains like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

Monday is Labour Day, a Bank Holiday, and as such, there's not much to speak of. The room appears a million times better, and my housemates, so far exclusively Canadian, are lovely. Still no sign of a cleaner for my room, mind.

Tuesday 2nd September
Probably the first day where jet-lag wasn't an issue. I'm taking part in St Michael's College 'frosh' week, similar to British Freshers' in that everyone is getting to know each other, but different in almost every other respect.

For a start, it kicks off at 8am. It's very 'North American', with chants, happy clapping, and oh my word, the attention I get over my accent.

'BRITISH DUDE!'
'OH MY GOD, SAY THAT WORD AGAIN!'
'TALK MORE, WE WANT TO HEAR YOU TALK MORE!'

It's incredible. For someone who has very much a Droitwich accent with a Brummie lilt, brought upon by cumulative hours moaning at St Andrews, it's so, so welcome to realise my accent is loved. Feel free to bring this up in a year's time, but I don't think I'll ever get bored with people giving me attention over my accent.

I've also been told I look like Steven Gerrard, and, surprisingly, people seem mad-keen on football (soccer). When I tell them I'm a Birmingham City fan, the most common reaction is:

'Yeah, but who's your EPL team?'

When I read the outline of the 'Frosh' schedule, I was highly dubious. Chanting 'hoikity-choik' and 'everywhere we go' sounds like a nightmare to a lot of people, but by midday, having forgotten all inhibitions (and sat through a Mass sermon- imagine that in the UK?!), I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Dare I say it, but as someone who isn't a massive drinker (or at least wasn't when I was a fresher in 2011), I think I prefer the Canadian Frosh to the British Fresh.

There's also old-style games. Not even ones that involve alcohol (most at Frosh are under the age of 19, Canada's drinking age), although I've definitely played versions of some of them whilst inebriated in the past. In that respect, it's good to get back to the roots.

Later on, we headed down to the multi-purpose Rogers' Centre to see the Toronto Argonauts take on the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL (Canada's version of the NFL). The differences between my experiences at the Blues and my experience watching the Argonauts could fill a book, but for now, you'll have to wait until a forthcoming blog. All I'll say is this: it sounds incredibly naff, but when I was standing for the Canadian national anthem at the start of the game, in a relatively full tier, surrounded by friends I'd made that very day, I definitely had to hold back some tears. Working towards a Year Abroad is a tricky experience to say the least, and for it to finally come together is a genuinely emotional feeling.

So, for now, #EdGoesToRonto is LIVE!

Coventry is lost without its football club

Here is a link to my piece for The Boar, Warwick University's student newspaper, on the damage that the economic and political fiasco that has ripped football out of Coventry has caused to the city.

http://theboar.org/2013/08/22/coventry-is-lost-without-its-football-club/#.UhcQYfmsiSo

'Red or Dead' left in the shade by 'The Damned United'.

Ed Higgs sat down at his laptop. His laptop, his life's work. His life's work in his laptop. Ed Higgs opened up his laptop. Ed Higgs logged onto The Bread Roll Blog. The Bread Roll Blog of secrets, of lies. Of lies and of secrets. Ed Higgs waited. Waited. Always waiting. Waiting for more lies, for more secrets. And Ed Higgs began to write about the new book by David Peace. 

When I heard about the novel, my first feeling was one of immense excitement. Peace's first football novel, The Damned United is easily the best of its kind, albeit in that fallow area of literature, the sports book. The story of Brian Clough's ill-fated period as manager of Leeds United has been made into a moderately good film, but it does not contain the poisonous moodiness of the novel. This is somewhat unsurprising, as Peace's unique selling point as a writer is his wonderful capacity to create an authorial voice, something impossible to replicate on screen.

Read this.

When I heard it was to be about Bill Shankly, I felt some disappointment. I pride myself on knowing an awful lot about football, but when it came to Shankly, my knowledge was relatively sparse. I knew he was incredibly successful, I knew he was the first to declare that football is 'more important than life and death', but beyond that, I was fairly ambivalent towards him.

I should have taken that as an invitation to leave the book well alone. Football loves to lampoon, to criticise and to bait. Plenty of people have mimicked Brian Clough, snarled 'yous a bunch of fucking idiots' in the style of Sir Alex Ferguson, and punned upon Jose Mourinho's 'The Special One'.

But Shankly?

Therein lies the problem. Bill Shankly is too nice. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't sat there urging the novel to take a twist whereby Shankly reveals a desire to brutally murder Bob Paisley and burn down the Kop. Alright, maybe a little bit. And the book does contain historical appeal, even literary appeal. The style, mimicked in my italicised opening paragraph, isn't even that grating. Alright, alright, it's fairly grating, but like I say, as a literature student, who am I to argue if a writer wants to experiment? A bit of post-modern never hurt anyone.

The problem with any novel roughly based on historical events is there's only so much tinkering with the plot that a writer can do. We all vaguely know the story: Shankly takes a struggling Liverpool and turns them into a power-house, via a love-affair with the city and the supporters. We are, like it or not, reading about the rise and rise of Liverpool Football Club.

Meanwhile, Clough takes a brilliant Leeds side, is despised from the start, and is sacked after 42 days of non-acceptance and bitterness from both parties. Clough hates Leeds, and the only reason he took the job is to prove his arch-rival Don Revie wrong. Yet in that story, David Peace ensures that everyone (aside from Johnny Giles who later sued him) is a winner. Neutrals understand that Clough is not the problem at Elland Road, and this is why he will go on to have a very successful spell with Nottingham Forest. Readers recognise that Leeds are the pantomime villains, a role which their supporters still relish. And, despite the bitterness seeping through the pages, Clough retains his popularity with the reader through his family ties, biting wit, and 'bromance' with assistant manager Peter Taylor.

I'm happy to love Shankly. It's impossible not to, he's bloody annoyingly perfect. I'm happy to love the book, despite Peace's style. But I can't, as much as I try, enjoy reading a success story of Liverpool Football Club. Shankly forever has Bob Paisley at his side, another demi-god of football, and another reminder of how this is only going one way- you are reading the rise and rise of Liverpool Football Club. It's by no means stomach churning, and Peace, as a gritty Yorkshireman himself, does not do schmaltzy sentiment (strange for a man who immerses himself in the past as a method-writer). Nonetheless, this is the house that Bill built, and I can't help but feel, in my paranoid Birmingham City state, that I'm reading about how Bill Shankly somehow contributed to our 7-0 FA Cup defeat by Liverpool in 2006.

Only hardcore Liverpool fans need apply.

The Damned United had light and shade, even beyond the pages. Light in Clough's meteoric rise as Derby manager (on the page), light in his back-to-back European Cup victories (off the page). Dark in his damned spell as Leeds manager (on the page), dark in his battle against alcoholism that eventually killed him (off the page, but hinted at in the book).

Red or Dead is a book perhaps better suited to the Anfield club shop than Waterstones. Shankly is all light. And, in the twenty-first century, if you're all light in the world of football, then frankly, nobody really cares.

Football and the Faustian Pact

There have been several events in the world of football this week that have increasingly worried me. I have come to the realisation that I am a human being first, probably a Birmingham City supporter second, and that being a 'football fan' comes somewhere between 'one-time fruit picker' and 'Year 8 B-Team leg-spinner' in my personal identity.

Before you reach for the 'New Tab' button, let me offer a disclaimer: this will not be an #AgainstModernFootball rant. For a start, 'Modern Football' is the only thing I've ever known, being born in 1993. Secondly, most people who go under that banner do so whilst tweeting in front of Sky Sports' Super Sunday.

I'm still enthralled by the game itself. The ninety minutes of football still holds me in my armchair in a way that a film or TV show rarely can. Forget the moans about diving and play-acting; that's just 1970s leg-breaking tackles in a different guise, branded by the same motif of a natural urge to cheat. It was ever thus.

But that magic is leaving us romantics behind. Football is a sport increasingly played behind closed doors, in the boardrooms and corridors of power.Last week, I went to a Sports Journalism course down in Wimbledon. First up, there was a sports quiz. It was telling of the modern media that most of the questions revolved around chief executives, directors and chairmen. It was perhaps even more telling that I knew almost all the answers.

Which brings me neatly onto the events of the week. I consider myself to be very knowledgeable about the sport, and yet, there have been two players signed this summer, for a combined fee of £60m, that I have never heard of. One is Fernandinho, the other is Soldado. Irrelevant to an extent, but just to give you some sort of context.

Recognise this man? He cost £34m.
http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8648505.ece/ALTERNATES/w460/62-Fernandinho-mcpa.jpg

Meanwhile, Coventry City are going to the wall. The football club has been put into liquidation, and the future looks extremely bleak. A club that has won the FA Cup more recently than West Ham, Newcastle, and Aston Villa, a proper, one-team footballing city, bang-smack in the middle of the country. I really wonder how many people knew, or even cared. To discover the ins and outs, I had to watch the local news. Not Sky Sports News. The top story, if Sky was even capable of introspection, should have been how anyone can justify paying such money for the above players, when a club such as Coventry, part of the fabric of English football, have been left to rot? For Sky, and their assorted minions of supporters, it barely registers on their radar.

We used to say it would take a club- any club- to go to the wall to make the clubs and owners sit up and take notice. You think that will happen now? No chance. Now it seems it will take, naturally, one of the Sky Power Elite, to go bust. Perhaps, in 2050, we can have Liquidation Sunday, presented by Jim White's grandson, whereby Ray Winstone offers us odds on which of Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City will be wound up first?

It was symptomatic of the media that when I found out the news about Coventry at the course, on a corner of the BBC Sport website, I announced it to the rest of the room. The man taking the class, not much older than us, and a fan of one of the Power Elite, exclaimed 'Oh my god really?! Oh no, wait, actually I don't care'. And so the talk turned back to the Premier League.

Up in Doncaster, a member of One Direction now has a contract. I'm not joking. So what, you might say? If it brings in extra revenue, then maybe Coventry should have wised-up earlier and signed Gary Barlow back in the early 2000s? This move surely signifies the final nail in the coffin of football's meritocracy, the spit-and-sawdust, flat caps and whippets of football's School of Hard Knocks. Think of the young Doncaster trainee, who, following the announcement of the mandatory 25-man-squads, turns on Sky Sports News and sees that Louis Tomlinson has been selected ahead of him. The trainee is forced to move on and disappears into non-league obscurity, whilst everyone laughs at how silly Tomlinson looks trying to play professional football, and the gimmick is over. Unfortunately, so is the young trainee's career. Such is the knife-edge for young players.

Doncaster Rovers' new gimmick- er, signing.
Pic: http://www.calcioweb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/tomlinson.jpg

Across Yorkshire, Hull City have hammered the final nail into any sort of identity coffin with their re-branding as 'Hull City Tigers'. Their Egyptian owner deemed the suffix 'City' as 'too common'. Imagine! Formed in 1904, but forget it, some bloke passing through in 2013 doesn't like that, so you're Tigers lads, or we're going to the wall. Don't make me sell you to Coventry.

As supporters, if we choose to buy into anything other than the team and the ninety minute experience, are just play-things, or, at the very least, waiting to become play-things. We're kidding ourselves otherwise. And don't worry, there's nothing wrong with a bit of self-delusion. Football is built on such glorious imagination. I'm deceiving myself every day as a Blues fan that we'll retain our identity forever more. And there definitely are teams who still keep their dignity, for now, anyway. But who's to say what's next? Blues will likely have new owners within the next year, and who knows what crackpot scheme will evolve? Merger with Coventry? Don't forget lads, before our rich owner arrived, we were going to the wall. So you'll play as West Mercia FC or I'll sell you to Hull City Raccoons.

It is, of course, easier to whinge from the outside looking in. I can moan about the MCC being an old-fashioned, archaic Old Boys' Club, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't jump at the chance to have steak and chips in the Long Room. I think of the Premier League as a glass prism. Once inside, everything is distorted, phantasmagorical, the light is colourful and magical, and you forget there's a whole world outside. It takes a few years outside the glass prism to really appreciate the ninety minutes for what they are.

Every football fan.
http://www.empowernetwork.com/empowerednetworker/files/2012/08/Devil-and-Angel-Homer-New-300x205.jpg

I would take being in the Premier League in an instant and all it entails, on the pitch at least. And that, I guess, is why Sky Sports and its riches is such a powerful, Faustian drug, and why, for as far as I can see into the future, clubs will sell their souls to eat at the top table.

There's a little bit of the Devil in all of us.

Cricket Pundits vs Football Pundits- A Game of Two Halves

This summer, with no full-time job, I've treated myself to wall-to-wall Ashes coverage. Whilst watching I've wondered out loud, on Twitter and the like, how cricket punditry came to be so thoroughly excellent. At first I attribute it, as I do most things, to Sky Sports, but then I remember the ways that football punditry has stood still for the last twenty years, and I think again, desperately searching for reasons and for mitigation for football.

It is, admittedly, fashionable to knock football in the summer months, especially when every other British sport is excelling. The same arguments resurface about wages, laziness, and celebrity lifestyle, and it's easy to lump in punditry, particularly considering some of the fees that the Match of the Day talking heads command.

Football pundits- bad.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/06/11/article-1025830-017D09EC00000578-572_468x370.jpg

But I've learned so much from watching The Ashes this summer, and I was hardly a novice in my knowledge of the sport to begin with. I've learned how Shane Watson is consistently a target for LBW decisions because of the way his front leg comes across his stumps; I've learned that Jonathan Bairstow is predominantly a bottom hand player, and as such, his technique lends itself to wayward, rash shots; and I've realised that Phil Hughes doesn't use his feet. Admittedly, you don't need Geoffrey Boycott to tell you the last fact in that little list, but the point still remains.

Then I try to remember what I learned from football's pundits last year. Not a lot. Strikers who score goals 'need to be watched', defenders who make mistakes 'get punished', and big strikers 'are a handful'.

But why? Why, with so much to talk about, are football pundits getting left behind? At first I put it down to the pace of the respective sports. Cricket ebbs and flows, it has natural lulls that need to be filled, whereas football, with its frenetic pace, lends itself more to description. Yet how do you explain fifteen minutes of platitudes in between halves on Super Sunday, or an hour and a half of matey generalisations on Match of the Day?

Cricket pundits- good.
http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Nasser+Hussain+England+v+New+Zealand+pi1ezlr8d1Zl.jpg

Is it, akin to the desire to knock football at every turn, that we want to hate the football pundits? Is it that Alan Shearer is a sad Geordie *******, Stan Collymore played for the Villa, and Alan Hansen is a dour Scot that shouldn't be commenting on England anyway? Is it a partisanship that doesn't really exist in cricket? Sure, Geoffrey Boycott is synonymous with Yorkshire, but nobody really hates another county, not unless you've got a bit-part in Richard III, anyway.

Again, partisanship is fairly irrelevant. Take Gary Neville. An immensely divisive figure whilst playing for Manchester United, he has completely altered many people's opinions with his analytical punditry. Other football pundits are loved, relics of a bygone era like Barry Davies, but this is more for their lyrical qualities than their analysis of an offside trap. Pundits have to prove themselves in whatever sport, and Shearer, Hansen and Collymore have only reinforced the negative perceptions.

A touchy subject, but is it to do with education? Messrs Hussain and Atherton achieved degrees at Durham and Cambridge respectively, and are two of the more articulate commentators on our screens. On the other hand, I'm reminded of a quote from Mike Bassett: England Manager, where we learn that winger Alan Massey 'is not stupid. He's got five O-Levels,you know, including a D in Technical Drawing'. It is harder, and a bit of a silly decision, to marry a football career with a university degree. Why, therefore, is there a reluctance to use non-footballers as anything other than the Village Idiot, a sounding-board for the 'proper' pundits? I know that Adrian Chiles has knowledge of football, so why this bizarre deference to Roy Keane? I learn more from reading the views of 'ordinary' people on forums than I do from the apparent demi-gods of ITV Sport. Alas, it was ever thus. When an analyst from the Football Manager computer game series had the temerity to put his opinions across on Twitter, Stan Collymore, that oracle of football knowledge, went off on a rant about 'playing at the highest level'. Articulate you may be, possessing a degree in Classics having studied Aristotle and James Joyce, but until you've put Des Walker on his arse, you're nobody in football punditry, says Stan.

To continue along the theme of Stan and the Stats Man, there seems to be a perception that to analyse football to an acute degree is somehow geeky and weird, something to be left to the boffins, whilst MoTD chuckle about what a 'big unit' Christian Benteke is. This Luddism has spilled over into goal-line technology- for many years, something to be feared. Cricket, thankfully, got over that many years ago, and its punditry is better for it.

Why not have a Simon Hughes prototype statistician? Why do, for example, Tottenham struggle without Gareth Bale? Why did Stoke get so much joy from utilising height at set pieces, when the LA Lakers are rubbish at football? When Cristiano Ronaldo's weird bendy free-kick stance was analysed, it was like Man had discovered fire. I want more of that.

Perhaps there is just more to analyse in cricket. Yet people get a genuine joy out of listening to the raconteurs on Test Match Special, whereas I'd have probably got more out of listening to Showaddywaddy's Greatest Hits than hearing Shearer talk about how 'he's passed it, he's shot, and he's scored'.

Catharsis Cricket

One of the joys of the newly re-branded Sky Sports Ashes channel is the ubiquitous nature of the shows entitled 'Australia/England's Best Days'. One, as anyone who followed cricket in the mid-90s and early 2000s will testify, is far more frequent than the other. It's comical, in a way that only self-deprecating English cricket fans will find funny, to imagine archivists and producers rooting around amongst video tapes, frantically searching for England highlights, until they stumble upon that most dead of dead day's cricket, Day Five of the Fifth Ashes Test, where England's Andy Caddick took a few wickets and avoided a whitewash.

Soon, the boot will almost certainly be on the other foot. In one of the few rivalries where it is still acceptable to shout the opposition's nationality in a derogatory fashion (see 'you English bastard!' or, 'you Aussie convict!' for examples), Australia's class of 2013 are doing their best to turn this Ashes series into an anodyne walkover.

When a leading cricket betting writer is advocating a five-nil whitewash before the start of August as the best value punt, you know that the series is on its knees in terms of gambling profitability. As a sporting contest, the death knell is never far behind.

A notable sea-change to the Sky Sports Ashes schedule is when they get round to showing Edgbaston 2005. Glorious, glorious Edgbaston. I was there in that bear-pit of a Saturday Edgbaston crowd, and it remains one of the finest day's sport I've ever witnessed. That day, each Australian wicket was treated with a jubilant, mischievous roar, yet undoubtedly tinted with a hint of genuine tribal glee. There was a sense of 'eighteen years of hurt', and Fatty Warne, Trampy Gillespie and Little Man Syndrome Ponting were going to get it in the neck.

Fast-forward eight years to now, and England fans are sighing disappointedly, sympathetically, when Ashton Agar, the Australian debutant number eleven, gets out on 98. Have they forgotten all those years of misery? Or are the Australians just too bad to even bother getting worked up about? Too nice, even?

06-07 Ashes- tell me that doesn't make your blood boil.
http://www.mbennettphoto.co.uk/pictures/DEFAULT/Ashes%20Win%2006_07.jpg

I've tried my best to hate this current crop, but it's just too difficult. Shane Watson, if you look at his face, should be immediately dislikeable, but he seems intent on bringing his own side down from the inside, so he should be welcomed, not castigated, on these shores. Peter Siddle, who equally has a punchable face, should be vilified by supporters, but as he's the ultimate 'whole-hearted bowler', I find myself wanting more Siddles. Even David Warner, guilty of punching England batsman Joe Root in a Birmingham club, is only hated because of his own off-field follies, rather than his tenacious batting.

This is not to say that I'm not absolutely loving this series. Non-partisan fans might ask how such a one-sided contest, especially in a sport such as cricket, which relies on ebbs and flows, could ever be considered interesting. Cynics might ask whether I found 2006-07 as enjoyable, when England were whitewashed. For the non-partisans and the cynics, the answer lies in each other's questions. This is revenge, and anyone who feels sorry for Australia needs to spend a few hours watching 'Australia's Best Days'.

Even 2002-03, right at the tail-end of those eighteen years of hurt, still held a perverse enjoyment. We might not have realised it at the time, but those one-sided cricket series were brilliant. To use an analogy, it's a bit like the film The Usual Suspects. For the first ninety minutes, I always find myself wondering why I'm watching this slow, dull, average thriller. And then, because the last fifteen minutes is so excellent, I come away thinking 'no, actually it was brilliant after all'.

Catharsis Cricket
 http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/07/15/article-2364106-1ACFA9A9000005DC-134_634x457.jpg

For eighteen years, the Ashes might have seemed dreadful, yet we kept watching. It was only in 2005, when the Ashes were regained, that sitting through all that pain became worthwhile, and, mercifully, we're still reaping the benefits now.

This summer, like none other before, is catharsis cricket at its very best.