Brotherly love for the 24-hour Europeans
It was enough to put a spring into the step of the old federalist Jacques Delors and bring on the night sweats for the editors of the Daily Mail and The Sun.
What Margaret Thatcher makes of it, or if she is even aware, we do not know. But I can guarantee that the Iron Lady, in her prime, would have had plenty to say about derogation, national sovereignty, her 1988 Bruges speech, the merits of the five iron in continental conflict, the performance of the Molinari brothers, and the role played by the likes of Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, and those key contributors from what she would have regarded as the Celtic fringes – Graeme McDowell, and Rory McIlroy.
But her highest praise would have been reserved for the captain, Colin Montgomerie.
“Monty” – there’s a name with historical resonance. With his dry accent, his Yorkshire upbringing and concomitant short fuse, his degree in accountancy, and his education at Houston Baptist University... you just know that he would have been “one of us”.
Perhaps a useful Treasury secretary sent in to bark admonitions over the excessive spending plans of ambitious junior ministers or a valuable member of the elite group of level heads who comprised the emergency “Cobra Committee” wheeled out to deal with national emergencies such as BSE, or flooding, or the threat of an embarrassing Yorktown-style defeat to the Americans on the final day of a golf competition.
You can imagine Thatcher pushing a paper across the mahogany table in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (for such is the prosaic origin of the Cobra acronym), tapping on it archly with one finger, and saying with raised eyebrows: “The Molinaris... just exactly what are they for? I want to know now Colin.”
As an only child, I have always been fascinated by siblings and the balance of power between them and in a fortnight which saw the curious political battle of the Millibands in the UK, I looked forward to the performance of the Molinari brothers – a name that Graham Greene would surely have been proud to invent.
Watching the mixed performances of Edoardo and Francesco and before the adrenalin rush of that elegiac putt by the man from Portrush on the 16th, I fell to musing on other great family sporting partnerships...
The Robledo brothers, the first South Americans to make an impact on insular English football when the Chileans lit up the last Newcastle team to win anything decent in the 1950s. It was the elder brother, George, who scored the winning goal in the cup final against Arsenal in 1952.
The Comptons from Arsenal who also played cricket for Middlesex. Leslie Compton appeared in more than 230 games for the Gunners and remains, at 38, the oldest outfield player ever to be capped for his country. His brother, Denis, a winger, was the first post-war superstar, a cavalier batsman who won the Ashes, and whose sponsorship with Brylcreem paved the way for Becks and co.
Then there were the Blanchflowers at Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United where younger brother Jackie was seriously injured in the Munich air crash, had the last rites administered, and survived.
Cricket abounds with sporting brothers – the Chappells, the Waughs – and rugby has had them too with the likes of the Underwoods and the Quinnells. Then there’s the O hAilpín dynasty.
Just a couple of miles from Celtic Manor is the birthplace of Arthur Gould, one of three brothers who played rugby for Wales.
He led his nation to its first ever Triple Crown and Championship in 1893 and was his country’s most capped centre until Steve Fenwick took that laurel at Lansdowne Road in 1980.
He also held the record for the highest consecutive number of games as captain – 18 – until he was overtaken by Ieuan Evans in 1994.
At the end of the 19th century rugby was played with a forward pack of nine and three three-quarters.
Wales revolutionised the sport by removing one man from the scrum and adding an additional three-quarter. It was the brio of Arthur Gould which gave us the modern game.
Such was his fame that the Welsh wanted to recognise him through raising a public testimonial of one shilling per person, which became so oversubscribed that the English Rugby Union complained that it breached the amateur code.
The row resulted in Wales withdrawing from international competition for a year and was only resolved when Gould quit the game. You won’t find a statue to Arthur Gould in Newport, as you will, perhaps, see one in the future at Celtic Manor dedicated to Graeme McDowell.
When he died, a memorial bed was placed in the Royal Gwent Hospital with the inscription “To the memory of Arthur Gould – Greatest of Rugby Football Players.” It went when the hospital wing was demolished.
* Contact: allan.prosser@examiner.ie
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