A sporting tale.

In the midst of the Olympic extravaganza, I caught a local news item whereby, they reported on a protest by users of a, community sports arena designated for closure.

Now, when i say protest there were 7 actual people outside the arena with a smattering of small,  handwritten placards among them. The(less than)magnificent 7 included a baby and at least two other people who appeared to be actually waiting for a bus, probably wandering across with the shopping bags to see what the camera was about.

Anyway, when the piece cut inside, the reporter did his report in front of the badminton court where, easily the worst ever badminton players ever allowed on a court, were enacting an(alleged)game of badminton. The news item was only a few minutes long and the 'game' only filled a couple of those but I seen enough to validate my statement. Easily the worst ever.

The two ladies in question did not get the shuttlecock over the actual net once! Not once, the player 'serving' and i really hesitate to call it that,would  drop the cock(!), take a mad desperate swing at it with the poor misfortunate racket and, if they did connect at all, it 'flew' upward for about two miserable feet before decending with the grace of a fallen swan to land unceremoniously at the same players feet. The whole fiasco would be repeated while player b tried to look 'sporty' down the other end.A look she might have greater luck with if she hadn't been wearing jeans and a jacket.

The poor baby( protester no7 from outside...keep up!)had to watch all this from her pushchair parked courtside. Sadly for her they parked her facing the court but at least, being more than 3 feet away, she had no chance whatsoever of being hit.

With the theme of this Olympics being the legacy for sport afterward, our local news team obviously saw the chance to shoehorn a topical piece into the evening news, a classic filler item which they actually led the whole bulletin with! A seriously slow news day obviously, I believe the reported rounded up the 'protesters' from the local mom and baby club, theres no way on earth those two women had seen  a shuttlecock before let alone hit one. Come to think of it they're probably still there 3 days later trying to hit that one! 

Still, I hope they are sucessful in their protest, sports venues should be saved, I might even phone up and offer assistance, oh not with the placarding but to show the two ladies at least which way up a racket should be!