Wilde S: Beef and Lamb dish out little to chew over (06 Mar 95)

Beef and Lamb dish out little to chew over - Simon Wilde

Simon Wilde tucks in with two former England internationals but finds the course of cricketing banter decidedly on the lean side.

The famous are apt to say that life would be bearable if only they did not have to put up with the dreadful trappings of their celebrity status. Who, they say, needs the cameras, the crowds, the social cachet? Even, one or two will add, the cash? They do, that`s who.

Remove those trappings and then see what the once-famous do. Often, after a brief period in obscurity, they are back: retired actors become politicians, retired politicians become radio or television presenters, retired sportsmen become actors. Almost all become social and environmental campaigners. The list of afterlives is endless.

A new favourite is the sportsman-turned-touring-speaker. The stages of theatres and town halls the length and breadth of Britain are filled night after night with the bar-stool banter of heroes whose hairlines and waistlines have ebbed and overflowed with the tides of time. George Best and Denis Law, Tommy Docherty and Malcolm Allison, Ian Botham and Allan Lamb ... they are all at it.

The attraction is obvious. For less than the price of admission to a Premiership fixture or Test match, members of the audience are placed on a more intimate basis with the performers than at either. Not only is there physical proximity, great play is also made of the fact that, during the question-and-answer sessions, no holds will be barred.

These are largely male, drinking occasions. At Sheffield City Hall on Saturday, for ``Beef and Lamb in a Stew``, there were few trimmings, just a large lounge into which everyone piled before the show and during the interval. When a buzzer sounded, drinks were hurriedly finished. Botham had clearly not lost his ability to empty bars.

The entertainment began with a half-hour film about the public and private lives of Lamb and Botham. They fished, talked about going to the pub, played cricket, although never before 1989. There was no BBC footage, it was Sky Sports all the way.

After that, Botham and Lamb came on to the stage, looking in pretty good shape. Botham retired less than two years ago and Lamb is still playing county cricket. The first thing Botham did was adjust his eyes to the lights and sweep the horizon to see what sort of crowd he had commanded. There were five or six hundred of us, which seemed to satisfy him. What sort of innings would he play?

Well, sadly, it turned out to be a Sunday league slog. The questions were submitted on slips of paper and examined by a compere, who tossed them up for Botham and Lamb to hit. There was thus no chance of Botham being delivered an unplayable yorker about Miss Barbados.

The questions were predictable, and so were the answers. Many of the anecdotes were familiar. Some bore repetition, others did not. Confirmation that the rift between Graham Gooch and David Gower was about a difference of character (``One has one, the other doesn`t``) was amusing but scarcely a revelation.

Another disappointment was the bottle that stood unopened on the table in front of our raconteurs. There were certainly many laddish references to drinking and condoms, much railing against the Establishment, but this would have had more frisson without the suspicion that, in another town hall, at the same time, Best and Law, or Docherty and Allison, were toeing exactly the same rebellious line.

Even those deliveries that could have been played straight, Botham chose to hit for six. The audience wanted the truth about ball-tampering, about his most frightening moment, about who he would have in the England side this summer. But he took the easy option and went for the big-hit laughs. The only thing he was serious about was criticising the ``system``, but that is the one thing he could have been funny about because few people seriously believe Botham will ever be in charge of English cricket.

It was therefore necessary to decode a lot of Botham`s material. Decoded, it said that he mistrusts many things foreign; that he was scared of Michael Holding in 1981; and that he does not really want to take charge of English cricket.

My question (``Do you miss playing for England?``) was never asked. It did not need to be. Botham answered it, denying it emphatically. The thing was, he did so in reply to another question entirely.

Source :: The Times