The Manchester United excuse

   Well, I said last week we live in a strange world. It gets stranger. Manchester United did not win on Sunday. (YES!!!!) They actually lost! (Sadly, this did no affect the fortunes of my team, Liverpool, or as they are better known, Liverpool Nil.) But it will be a very strange world indeed when Sir Alex Ferguson finally admits that either his tactics were wrong or his team were beaten by the better side. Once again, it was the referee’s fault. Once again, these blind creatures from the bottom of Alex Ferguson’s compost heap with brains the size of a tomato plant failed to accept Man U’s God-given right to win, preferably in the 99^th minute. (Note for non-football fans: a football games lasts 90 minutes, unless it involves Manchester United in which case its length is extended until they win.)

  Sir Alex can do better than this. He can resort to the second greatest excuse for sporting failure of all time – the wrong colour of shirts. 3-0 down to Southampton (yes, Southampton!) at half time a few years ago, the irrepressible gum-chewing Scot later said “Me players couldnae see each ither!” They were wearing grey shirts, you see, which presumably clashed with the – er? – grey grass. At half-time, the Manchester United team swopped their shirts to white, with “Cooo-eee! I’m over here! Now pass the ball!” written on them, and lost 3-1.

  If that was the second greatest excuse for sporting failure, nothing can beat Lighton Ndefwayl. The Zambian tennis player responded to his 1992 defeat in a local tournament by Musumba Bwayla with a thoughtful critique of his opponent's skills: “Bwayla is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts, and that made me lose my concentration, for which I am famous throughout Zambia.” Remember the name – he has all the right qualifications for the next manager of Manchester United.

  I could give other examples…Mervyn King once lost a World Darts Championship semi-final and blamed it on the air-conditioning; Sri Lanka lost an ICC Championship cricket game and blamed it on their tight clothing; a Chicago baseball player could not play because his eyelid had stuck open the previous night and he could not sleep; and let’s not forget Paula Huhtaniemi, who flopped at the Athens Olympic javelin competition (where her nation, Finland, usually excels) because she was surprised the stadium was so big. (Big, as in Olympic-sized?) Really, Sir Alex, blaming defeat on the referee is kid’s stuff. You’ve used up the “wrong colour of shirts” excuse….in your school report, we will write “Could do better!”

  You could, of course, take a leaf or several from the Christian church, who are the masters of the Lame Excuse. Falling church membership? Where do I start for the excuses I have heard? Post-modernism (whatever that is), Richard Dawkins, Sunday morning football, the last minister of your church, the present minister of your church, Songs of Praise, Harry Secombe, Cliff Richard, television, the motorway system (think about that one), Tesco, …

 So I leave you with A Challenging Thought. All the statistics show that attendance at worship at our cathedrals is actually rising. They are doing something right. Bottle that something, sell it to Alex Ferguson, and you have a winning formula. My Church of Scotland colleague, John Bell, meanwhile, once said that when the kids don’t go into the sweetie shop at the street corner any more, painting the door and window of the sweetie shop isn’t going to make any difference. Whatever it is that our cathedrals are doing right, we should follow. I suspect it goes beyond the minister dressing in jeans, strumming a guitar and using PowerPoint. Actually, quite a bit beyond…

  And if your church is not packed out on Sunday, please don’t blame it on anyone else. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves”.  It is a difficult pill to swallow.  A bad workman always blames his tools.