Both v Chappelli (Part 31)

It’s hard to decide what was less flattering about contemporary society. Cricket’s foremost Ians still squabbling over a bit of argy-bargy in a Melbourne bar 30 years ago, or Fleet Street’s erstwhile inhabitants seeing fit to publish details of the latest renewal of public spatting.

For those not up to speed, the story goes something like this, allowing, of course, for the protagonists’ differing shadings and embellishments. One March evening in 1977, shortly after Australia had won the Centenary Test at the nearby MCG, the 21-year-old Ian Botham, then on a winter scholarship at the University of Melbourne, apparently overheard Ian Chappell, 12 years his senior, taking the pee out of the Poms. Not being one to turn so much as half a cheek, the fiercely patriotic Botham may or may not have threatened Chappelli with something glassy, then punched him to the floor.

According to one of Botham’s accounts, this sent Chappell “flying over a table into a group of Aussie Rules footballers, whose drinks were scattered to all parts (Needless to say, he replaced those drinks pretty quickly!)” After a parting shot from the former Australia captain, Botham tore after him into the car park and vaulted a bonnet or two, before belatedly realising there might be more productive ways of expending energy.

Chappell’s recollection, on the other hand, is that the “punch” was a “push” and that the barney had started a few days earlier. By the time he arrived at the “MCG” (the bar), he related in Ashley Mallett’s 2005 biography of his erstwhile Test skipper, Hitting Out, Botham “had obviously had a few beers and he was having a lot to say in a very loud voice. He made a couple of comments. I can’t remember exactly what they were saying but [he] said something about an Australian player and I said: ‘Yeah, you’re a typical county player. You’re the sort of player who thinks that if an Australian hasn’t been to England and played county cricket he can’t play. You think the only guy who can play in the Australian side is Greg Chappell because he played two years for Somerset.’ And he responded, ‘That’s right.’ Whereupon things “degenerated” and Botham eventually threatened to “cut” Chappell “from ear to ear”. Botham vehemently denies he used a bottle to illustrate his point.

As someone acutely aware of his own ability to make, break or inflate myths, Botham’s renditions have changed down the years. In Dudley Doust’s 1980 biography, Ian Botham – The Great All-Rounder, the Sunday Times sportswriter stated that his subject’s pursuit of Chappell ended when he “lost his prey in the traffic”. Come 1994’s blockbusting Botham – My Autobiography (Don’t Tell Kath), it was a passing police car that foreshortened the chase. Amazing how the memory improves with time.

For his part, Chappell insists he was not pursued into the car park but the main road, that the Victoria fast bowler Ian Callen grabbed Botham from behind and suggested the Somerset tyro calm down, and that he, Chappell, then withdrew. Whatever the truth, Chappell appears to have held the firmer grudge.

The way Mallett tells it, when the two Ians, by now fellow commentators, were interviewed on Channel 9 in Australia a decade or two later, “the bad blood between them was obvious”. Recalled Chappell: “At the end of it, I’ll never forget, Ray [Martin] said to Botham, ‘Oh well, you’ll still have a drink at the end of a day’s play.’

“And Botham said, ‘Yeah, that’s cricket, mate. You sit down and have a beer, or wine.’

“Ray turned to me and said, ‘You’ll be having a drink with him after the commentary is over?’

“I said, ‘No, Ray. I can find plenty of decent people to have a drink with. I won’t be drinking with him.”

Storm in a dusty old teacup? Much ado about nowt? Sure, it’s a pity two such admirable cricketers continue to lower themselves by perpetuating something that should have been forgiven and forgotten long ago. On the other hand, this is a grave time in our planet’s history. An age where, courtesy of the expansion of the media, the ability of gossip to spread at the speed of light and the evolution of litigation, the number of durable and entertaining feuds feels perilously close to an all-time low. (Oh my Oasis and my Blur of not all that long ago.) The giggles, therefore, are not unwelcome.