Fishing: Can it get exciting?

Fishing: Can it get exciting?

A couple of things happened this week to make me shake my head in sorry resignation of the state of the world: one was seeing Gary Neville giving Carlos Tevez the middle-finger insult and the other was my cricketing pal saying he’s giving up the game for fishing.


Now Neville – surely the surliest man in sport - has long been a lost cause. The pocket shop steward, whose myopic love-affair with Manchester United and its manager does him few favours, sunk a little further by wiggling his digit at the Argentinian who had just scored for Man City against United in the League Cup semi-final.


Tevez, we know, was winding up the United folk for not bowing to his summer demands, signing him on and making him a few more millions.


So he danced about, had a go at the United officials, including no doubt Sir Alex, and generally made a bit of a prat of himself in old fashioned goalscoring euphoric way.


Neville reacted. But, Gary, it doesn’t matter! Stay aloof. Maintain your dignity. You can do loads of laughing in the second leg when you turn them over. Nuff said.


Much more important is the bombshell that Andy – my mate and the man whose slow turners take a couple of days to reach the batsmen who are then so bored waiting they invariably get themselves out – is packing it in.


And for what? Standing knee deep in a cold stream in the Yorkshire Dales that’s what.


Why, I said. Because it’s fun, he said.


Fun? I said. Yes, he said. Lots.


How can it be, I said, when it’s belting down and you’ve left your umbrella in the car two miles away and the fish aren’t biting and you can’t feel your hands and feet?


Because my 16-year-old son wants me to take him and I love him and it’s the only time we get to spend any quiet time together.


Fair enough. A lot of batsmen aren’t going to be bored out this season.