Wellock's World
Can big three return to the top?
THE trio of North-East sportsmen who seem to attract the most headlines are Michael Owen, Jonny Wilkinson and Steve Harmison, mainly because we long for them to return to their previous summits.
Apart from being at the age when they should be at their peak, their common bond is that they have been derailed by injury, underlining that even the most talented need a long injury-free run to get back to their best after a debilitating period on the sidelines.
It doesn't need to be particularly lengthy break in Harmison's case as he's clearly a bowler who needs to keep performing. Otherwise rust sets in quickly and takes some removing.
A hernia set him back last year, then in his desperation to get some match practice before Durham's appearance at Lord's he developed a back problem, which ended a season which had begun full of promise.
It's because he was once the world's No 1, and has since been dubbed a wasted talent by the likes of Geoff Boycott, that Harmison attracts more attention than his Durham colleague Paul Collingwood, even though the latter is England one-day captain and might captain the Test team unless Michael Vaughan finds some form.
Collingwood keeps a fairly low profile locally these days. He wasn't present at Durham's pre-season photo-call, having returned overnight from a holiday in Cape Town, where he is reported to have played golf with Duncan Fletcher.
The ex-England coach was apparently much closer to the batsmen than the bowlers, so his recent swipe at Harmison, Matthew Hoggard and Andrew Flintoff was no great surprise.
It is difficult to imagine Harmison taking his four children to South Africa. He would be happier at St James' Park, finding further inspiration from Owen's renaissance, which bears the greatest testimony to the value of regular action.
Kevin Keegan's tactical nous may have played its part, but talk of Owen caring nothing for Newcastle will be shelved, at least until his agent opens the next round of bidding.
For Jonny, however, it's back to the knife once the Falcons have nothing left to play for, which might be tonight if they lose their European semi-final at Worcester. He almost got back to the heights of 2003 when he helped England to the World Cup final, otherwise a relatively injury-free season has merely confirmed the inevitable scarring left by his previous astonishing efforts.
With younger men going past him, Jonny currently looks the least likely of the trio to have an England future. But only he will be able to look back and say he won a World Cup as even Owen at his best will not inspire the footballers to such heights, no matter how much the coach is paid.
WHILE I remain a member of the Great Undished, I had to bow to majority opinion in listening to the Sky commentary in the media centre at Durham's match against Yorkshire on Sunday.
It was worth it just to hear Nasser Hussain say he would rather see Phil Mustard standing back to Neil Killeen as Andrew Gale went down the pitch to the very next ball and was stumped.
Hussain later made a reference to Steve Harmison coming from Accrington, instead of Ashington. So while the BBC give us plenty of reasons not to pay the licence fee, not least their vast expenditure on recapturing Formula One coverage, I still see no reason to let Rupert Murdoch have any of my cash.
NOW that Sir Ian Botham is a life member of Darlington Golf Club - perhaps he couldn't afford the fee - will he introduce PowerPlay to the club?
This is golf's answer to Twenty20 cricket and Beefy, a fan of the latter, is helping to promote PowerPlay's new national club championship. This is a nine-hole event with two holes on every green, one of which is in a more difficult position, just over the lip of a bunker, for example.
Each player must opt for the more difficult target at least three times and will collect six points for a birdie instead of three. It sounds ideal for summer evenings and I predict that when next year's fixture handbooks are published every club will have at least one of these events.
AT LEAST Eddie the Eagle always knew he was hopeless and took part in the Olympic ski jumping for a laugh, but Robert Dee seems to think he has a future as a professional tennis player. At 21, the son of a wealthy managing director from Kent recorded his first win as a pro at the 55th attempt this week, having equalled the world record for the longest run of defeats.
He has played all round the world at great expense to his father but was apparently bemused by the attention when he equalled the record. After his win in the first round of a lowly tournament in Spain he said: "I'm just going to keep on working hard with my coaches." He lost his second round match in straight sets
10:39am Friday 25th April 2008
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