Told you so !

Did you see that article in The Independent 'Cricket brings calm to state classrooms'?

It seems that one of the side effects of the wonderful 'Chance to Shine' scheme has been that, in schools involved, the standards of behaviour we're used to on cricket pitches is replacing that seen on football pitches.

Well I for one am not surprised and I speak as one who would never use the 'it's not cricket' expression except as a joke. Any student of the game knows that gambling played a huge part in the establishment of the game and that the shenanigans that go with that were therefore there almost from the beginning. We also know that sledging and general fielding-side chatter are more common than they once were but we're still a long way from what the multi-millionaires get up to. (Perhaps the credit crunch will have some effect in bringing fotball and its players back to reality but that's the subject of another rant another day).