The Americans simply would not get it. Go back to that magnificent finish to the Ireland V Zimbabwe match, the Africans requiring one run to win the game, the Irish needing to stop them doing it at all costs. In the blinking of an eye the final Zimbabwe wicket had fallen and the match was a dead heat. In America the teams would go into some form of sudden death triple overtime to get a winner, in Cricket hands are shaken and honour is satisfied.
 

 It would seem that the Americans have to have a winner in their contests, unless of course you are talking about Vietnam which appears to have been consigned to history as a no score draw. The concept of calling it a draw or a tie and going home seems to be alien to the way they do things.


 Now I’m not decrying American Sports, far from it. Never in the field of human endeavour has physical exertion been watched by some many, so fat, so often. It’s like exercise by proxy whilst consuming sodas, hotdogs and enough ice cream to camouflage a Polar Bear. However we have to accept that American sports have not exactly been successfully transplanted elsewhere, perhaps there is a reason for this?


 Take Basketball, a sport than generally leaves me lukewarm at best.  I do not doubt the skill or athleticism required but the constant expectation that you be ecstatic every time someone throws a glorified football through a horizontal hoop leaves me exhausted, especially when it can be happening one, twice or three times a minute. 


 Baseball is a funny one. The art of pitching (or bowling if you like) is a definite art with different sorts of deliveries to bamboozle the batter. However the batter has nothing more complicated to do than to swing and hit the thing as far as possible, none of the art or application that batting in our own sport requires. Any fool can try and tee off if missing the ball has no consequence other than another two opportunities to try again. Conversely I suppose if a batter in Baseball takes a hit he gets a free walk to second base, in Cricket the bowler gets the opportunity to dish out a bruise on the other side to match.

 
 Failing those two you could always take in a game of Hockey. Over here hockey means wooden sticks, a muddy field and a goal keeper that appears to have more padding than your average Sumo wrestler. Over there hockey means an ice rink, massive wooden sticks and a licence to get involved in approximately three fights every match. Entertaining stuff as a rule but if anyone thinks they can do damage with a right hook through a multitude of padding or a helmet is either slap happy or Mike Tyson.


 The ultimate American Odyssey though is played on the Gridiron. Try and think of another Sport where there is only one serious league , that containing only about 30 teams and then the Grand Final winners glorying in the title of ‘World Champions’.  Its probably the equivalent of the Wheatsheaf in Whetstone winning the Blaby Dominoes league and saying they could take anyone in a tasty round of ‘5’s & 3’s’.

 
 I’ve never been able to work out quite how a game that should be played by 11 players per side needs 45 men like it does in so called American Football. One team for Offense (attack) another for Deeeeefense (defending) and one for ‘Special’ Plays (the ones the rest can’t understand). In the many moments they are not directly involved they stalk the sidelines like a lovesick Rhino. In fact you would be forgiven for thinking the Gridiron touchline is a waiting area for unsuccessful participants of Weight Watchers Musical Chairs.


At the end of the day then as I am not one for either punching opponents, eating myself to death or claiming to be world champions when the world barely knows you are alive I think I will stick to what I know and thank the Irish and Zimbabwean lads for a great, if inconclusive, spectacle.