G Smith: High Deeds Of The Father Sit Heavily On Son's Shoulders (16 Nov 1996)

16 November 1996

High deeds of the father sit heavily on son`s shoulders

By Giles Smith

Michael Parkinson told me a story this week about a cricket match he watched at Bradford in which Richard Hutton, the son of the almighty Len, stoutly built a brave, 30-run innings on a sorry wicket, only to be met at the pavilion by a spectator saying, "Well done, lad. But tha`ll never be as good as thee dad." A better definition of thanklessness one would be hard pressed to find.

It is a tale that rings poignantly alongside the news that Liam Botham, the 19-year-old son of Ian, has weighed up his options as a sportsman and decided to concentrate on rugby rather than cricket. This is the Liam who, only this August, was making his county debut for Hampshire against Middlesex and taking five wickets in an innings, including, rather deliciously, Mike Gatting`s; the Liam once described by his father as "a cheeky bugger who reckons he is going to be better than his old man".

Botham timed his retirement so that he would be out of the way when his son took up the game seriously. But Liam has opted for rugby. Doubtless many considerations informed his choice, but in so doing, whether consciously or not, he has nicely side-stepped a set of footprints laid down by his father and extending dauntingly to the horizon. Whatever gets said in the future when Liam comes off the pitch at West Hartlepool, at least nobody will be able to offer heart-sinking comparisons with his dad.

You couldn`t claim that being the sporting child of a famous sportsperson was entirely without its advantages. Kick-abouts in the back garden presumably take on a different dimension if, like Mark, your father is Tony Hateley. You would grow up with a pretty clear idea of what it takes. At the same time, you would have to suffer not just the ceaseless comparisons and contrasts, but also a kind of low-watt, public resentment (all those unfair genes), as if a sporting gift were some kind of private income. Not to mention the psychic burden of seeing your name forever followed by a parenthesis - "(son of . . . )"

Botham wrote in his autobiography: "I`m sure that it is the hope of every father who plays professional sport that he will one day be able to watch his son performing at the same or higher level." But how often does that happen? How often does a child crawl out from under and rise to better the achievement of a successful sporting parent? Hard to prove yourself in the eyes of your father when your father has gone ahead and proved everything there was to prove.

Don Bradman`s son felt so encumbered by the precedent set by his father that he changed his name to Bradhouse. One can see how one would no more wish to take the name Bradman out on to a cricket square than one would want to carry the name Biggs into an annual general meeting for train drivers. But this name change is haunting in a hundred ways, not least because of the proximity of the pseudonym to the real name. Smith or Jones would have served Bradman`s son as a more efficient disguise, but clearly some irreducible part of him wished to stay true to the family line.

Incidentally, Bradhouse is one of the very few sons of famous cricketers to inspire a song by a former member of a punk rock group: Captain Sensible, a beret-wearing, bleached blond pogoartist with The Damned in the late 1970s, but always a wellinformed and reflective cricket fan, wrote the poignant Donald`s Son for a solo album in the mid-1980s. Some small consolation there, perhaps.

Clearly, the traumas attached to parental precedents are felt elsewhere than sport, but few areas of life provide so obviously the means for measuring the shortfall. With literature one can argue about these things. It`s a generation-dividing issue, for instance, which Amis writes for England. Some point to Kingsley`s superior record in the Booker Prize; others raise Martin`s indisputably major influence on an entire intake of younger players.

In general, though, examples taken from outside sport tend to confirm one`s impression that brilliance is unlikely to flare still brighter in the passage from parent to child. In pop music, the parental shadow seems to spread itself especially thickly. John Lennon was once asked if he thought Ringo was the best drummer in the world. He replied, "Ringo isn`t even the best drummer in the Beatles" - a jibe thrown into relief when one compares the career achievements of Ringo with his drumming son, Zak. And would anyone trade their Bob Marley albums for a complete set of albums by Ziggy?

The challenge is to find exceptions to the rule - mothers or fathers, daughters or sons. Frankie Dettori has out-achieved his champion father, Gianfranco. Contemporary motor racing seems to offer two potential upsets: Jacques Villeneuve may yet prove himself more gifted than Gilles; Damon Hill may yet push beyond the achievements of Graham (though many would fancy his chances better if he was still driving a Williams).

Clearly the most satisfying examples will be ones in which the target set by the parent is vertiginously high. Ideally, there would be international caps involved for both parties. If anyone can think of any suitable instances, I would be glad to compile a list and reproduce it here.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)