Joke's over now, okay?

You get what you wish for, so they say. And ‘they’ as we all well know, are eminently wise. This weekend was a case in point. I said I couldn't cope with my teams doing well. And what a sorry state of affairs I was presented with as a scathing riposte.

Watford, Watford, Watford. Likened to Real Madrid by Mark Bright on Radio 5 Live midweek apparently, this was clearly not the same team who had impressed in their win over Ipswich. Or if it was, they had had some kind of skill lobotomy; so devoid of ideas were my beloved team that I honestly think we could have played until Christmas and not scored. And for the top-scoring side in the division, that is worrying. And a bit odd. It was like the spark had been suctioned right out of them. I think someone must have told them I was there and they were feeling the pressure to perform. Bless them. The only team member on top of his game was Harry the Hornet, our mascot, who appears to have lost about 12 stone since I last saw him. He now dresses all in black and is the svelte equivalent of a mascot superhero. He has some pretty tidy moves too. And a massive drum.

Having recently been to see some live hockey matches and having not seen any live football in months, I found it quite difficult to get my head back in the game. For example, I was quite disconcerted that the staff at Vicarage Road hadn’t taken to playing bursts of fitting R'n'B numbers whenever there was a break in play. I was also disappointed to find that throw-ins weren’t sponsored by Phones4U. I found myself glazing over a bit whenever there was a section of play that lasted longer than thirty seconds. Although that may just have been because the game was flatter than a pancake. Laid flat, on a flat thing. In Norfolk. Or perhaps my attention span has been butchered into submission by hockey and I’ll never be the same again. I was highly amused though, by my Dad, who in a fit of misplaced political correctness, called the referee a follically-challenged twat. The man has class!

Things went from bad to worse on Saturday night when, forced to miss the Vipers game against the Cardiff Devils due to my foray darn sarf, I sat tensely in my parent’s home following the match on the Elite Ice Hockey League’s Live Scores page (which is about the most nerve-wracking method of following a sporting contest I have ever encountered, I might add). We lost again, which I was gutted about. Even worse, whilst reading the match report half an hour or so later, I let out an audible gasp upon discovering that promising Canadian forward Dale Mahovsky had to be treated after a goal was deflected in off his jaw and he lost three teeth! I concluded that ice hockey was just a big mean boys game and the Cardiff team must be a bunch of Neanderthals. How could they. Poor boy. He was one of the pretty ones, as well.

So that was that. Another loss for the Vipers followed on Sunday and I was left feeling particularly sorry for myself as another Monday rolled around, and this one a cold, damp and thoroughly autumnal one. I’ve changed my mind. Can I have winning back please? I promise I won’t complain about it ever again. I was only kidding, y'know. The internet clearly can't take a joke these days. Hmph.

A Ray of Hope

So in a week where football news has been dominated by our Lord Potato-head, we have finally had some resolution, thank his Rooney-ness. Yes, after a public dirty laundry-airing that Kerry Katona would have been proud of, Rooney and Fergie had a press conference-off earlier in the week, then cancelled some press conferences, before finally coming out with the Final Press Conference: Resolution Rooney. Yes, he’s staying put. All that hype, all that mud-slinging, all those attempts by Wayne to actually sound like a master of the English language (he wasn‘t fooling anyone), all for nothing. We end the week the same as we began it. Rooney is a Man United player. Wow. What a lot of knicker-twisting for absolutely no action. Give me strength.

But the footballing gods provided Manna from heaven this week in the form of Ian Holloway, with his general south-west heart-on-his-sleeve ranty-ness and his use of the phrase ‘you’re having me over, me old cocker’; diamond geezer! And more importantly, the reinforcement of my lovely little football club as one of the nicest, most family and community-oriented clubs in the country. Like a shot in the arm of those wearied by Rooney and his pathetic stropping, came a story to warm the hearts of all those who still hold out hope that football has some goodness left in its still-warm corpse, even if it is only the little toe.

Watford super-fan Don Fraser, a devoted fan who for many years has attended all matches despite his physical disabilities and has previously won Radio 5 Live’s ‘supporter of the year’ award, injured himself in an accident and was admitted to hospital (Watford General, situated in Vicarage Road itself, of course) for a hip operation earlier this week. As a result of this he was forced to miss our midweek encounter with Roy Keane’s Ipswich. This is no obstacle to Watford, however. The day after the match, the two goalscorers from the match Marvin ‘Scoredell’ Sordell and Stephen McGinn, visited Mr Fraser in hospital and delivered a DVD of our 2-1 win for him to savour. How nice is that. How much further away from the tarting about of that overpaid, over-rated cheating scumbag of a supposed footballing superstar can you get. And that’s my club, people. Proud? Am I ever.

To top it all off, I make my first appearance of the season at Vicarage Road (the football ground, not the hospital, barring a late-night red wine-induced disaster) tomorrow, and I hope that the winning streak will continue. Because if anyone deserves it, Malky Mackay and the hard-working, genuine set of lads he commands do. How I love my little club, still flying high at 3rd place in the Championship. That’s just 5 places below Liverpool, don’t you know.

Not to be outdone, the most annoying administrator ever to walk the earth, Andrew Andronikou, has today had yet another chance to fan his over-sized ego following the news that Portsmouth may yet again be up Poop Creek without a steering device. Doesn’t he know administrators are meant to be seen and not heard. Or preferably, not seen at all. I mean really, is he necessary? Never has one man had so much publicity over so little (obviously I am not belittling Pompey's dire circumstances, but rather, despairing over the day that an administrator became a spokeperson of such gravity. And I am one. Albeit, a less important one). He’s no better than the traffic warden who has just slapped a ticket on the prime minister’s car. Except, we might actually like him.

Best of luck to Pompey in bringing themselves back from the brink once again. and best of luck to my little team for in their match against another little team, Scunthorpe, tomorrow. As for Rooney, I hope his 'ankle' heals in good time for him to continue to do absolutely nothing for United for the foreseeable future.

Insert Tabloid-esque Rooney-related Headline Here

Discussing football is starting to actually hurt me, physically. I can’t resist it, however, and will always allow myself to be drawn into a conversation on the subject, despite the almost bolted on certainty that it will end with me either sighing heavily enough to induce a pulmonary embolism or damaging property belonging to myself or (preferably) someone else. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my little Watford and that will never, ever change. As the saying goes, cut me open and I bleed red and gold. In fact, I’m literally about to go and visit the National Blood Service to prove this very fact as they take out a pint of the stuff to be replaced by a cup of orange squash and a Tuc biscuit. Beat that bitches!

But anyway, I digress (riding off on the name of my blog again, apparently!). When it comes to England, and most Premiership clubs and footballers, I literally can’t take much more. I hate them. All of them (well, most of them - I do still have a soft spot for Sunderland, although I will admit I'm a bit biased). I had a discussion on Monday about Wayne Rooney’s potential future at Manchester City that actually made me want to physically expel the contents of my stomach out of the car window. I was travelling quite quickly around a large, crowded roundabout at the time and the thought occurs that it could actually have been quite interesting to study the trajectory of said stomach contents but again, I digress.

Apparently it was suggested that good old, salt of the earth club Cit-eh might pay His Holy potato-headed-ness half a million pounds a week to secure his seemingly magical footballing services. That’s £500,000, people. Per week. That’s seven days. If you’re interested, that breaks down to £2,976.19 per hour. Watch that second hand tick round for a few minutes. If you’re Rooney, you’ve now got enough to buy a tailored suit, or a top of the range watch. Jog up and down a patch of grass and kick a bit of plastic with air inside it for less than a day and you’ve got enough for a brand new BMW. Or 50-odd high class hookers. Just sayin’.

Illustration by S D Madgwick

Now, I’ve clearly missed something. It must have recently emerged that Rooney’s feet are in fact made entirely of Swarovski crystal, encrusted with one carat diamonds. His touch must quite clearly be as light as a downy feather plucked from the plump breast of a Christmas goose. One strike of the ball from Sir Wayne of Roonshire will make the fine women of England-land fall elegantly to their knees, panting and fanning themselves delicately whilst weeping tears of liquid silver.

Could it be that this one man, with skills silkier than blankets made from the pelts of a thousand Andrex puppies, this man with an understanding of football so far removed from us mere mortals that he actually exists in another realm entirely, has reached such a level of exaltedness that his breath-taking, palpitation-inducing, panty-moistening talent thus excuses the actions of his corporeal being? This is a human form, a physical host which unlike the infallible godlike athlete that inhabits it, slopes about the football pitch with cheeks bright red and sweat beading on its prehistoric brow, whilst off the pitch indulging in the delights of the local nightlife and procreating with the elderly and ladies of the night. It certainly offers no good reason for making it a millionaire on a fortnightly basis. Therefore, one can only conclude, that Wayne Rooney is basically God.

The burden of proof has landed squarely in the gold-tassled lap of Sheik Mansour, and he may or may not choose to reveal to the world its new Messiah; this man whose talents are so far elevated above the perceptions of us lowly plebeians that we cannot even SEE them. They exist purely in our imagination, or the collective unconscious, like the ability to learn language or the incomprehensible desire to try to put our big toes in our own mouths or receive mild electric shocks for no apparent reason. The holy man chooses not to manifest these skills in such demeaning and rudimentary contests as ‘The World Cup’ and ‘The Premier League’, instead selecting to reserve them for his other deity buddies, playing keepy-uppies in the heavens with Buddha, Jesus and The Prophet Mohammed. Hence why no-one can actually figure out if he’s actually any good anymore. But it has become apparent to me that blind faith alone is the only recourse in these dark and desperate times, as it has been so many times in the history of our species. We shall gaze upon God-Wayne with unerring devotion, until such time as he deigns to employ his crystalline feet in the pursuit of winning a football match once more.

Yes, well. That’s what I think about that in a rather over-sized nutshell. It has since been confirmed that Rooney will leave United, and I hope for his sake and ours that he chooses a club in Spain, Italy or perhaps even Uzbekistan. Lord knows he needs a break from the British media and Christ f%*king knows we all need a long and peaceful break from him. Let the potato famine begin.

Blind ambition

Having been blogularly somewhat more prolific over the last few weeks the thought occurs that I should use my current thrusting creative urge to actually forge ahead a bit in what is supposed to have been something resembling a career for me. My 17-year-old self seemed steadfastly convinced, for at least 50% of the year anyway, that my future lay in journalism. Whether it was to be music or sport seemed to be the only thing in question. (The other 50% of the year around that time my ambitions were roughly divided between heart surgeon, speech therapist and translator. Quite what this says about me I'm not sure, other than that I'm clearly not a very decisive person as, 12 years later, I am still stuck in administration. My 17-year-old self would not be amused. But I’m older than her so she can keep her mouth shut!).

I'm never quite sure whether or not to feel gut-wrenchingly disappointed that, almost 30 years into my time on this planet, I haven't really started doing what I actually want to do with my life (not that the first 18 or so really count as full time education does tend to get in the way a bit). I have in recent years swung pendulously from one startlingly urgent desire to the next, from one moment deciding that running my own rock pub is absolutely the only course of action available to me and actually researching vacant properties in the area, to genuinely believing in the next instance that I could be the world's best screenwriter and getting a good 90 pages into my first script before deciding it was rubbish and abandoning it. Will I ever grow out of this irritating habit of blindly barnstorming my way from one unrealistic ambition to the next? I really hope so, because if I don't I'm going to end up leading a pretty forgettable existence from the point of view of society as a whole.

It's not like I have a burning desire to discover a cure for the common cold, or to found the next Facebook, or resuscitate hamsters. I'm fully aware that to do something truly great takes a finely tuned combination of any of the following ingredients: natural genius or talent, dumb luck, meticulous training, bravery, or favourable breeding and the connections that come with that. To be famous, or brilliant, is quite another thing to just succeeding at something. And although I'd like to think of myself as perhaps not the most shabby Senior Administrator in all of higher education-dom, I'm painfully aware that I really don't think it's what I was put on this earth to do.

And so it is that I come back, once again, to writing. The spontaneous and genuinely unplanned spouting of my brain matter onto a computer screen that somehow gets me through these almost manic periods of nervous but misdirected creativity. It's something that I can do. I may not be the most gifted writer in the world. But it feels good to empty some of my thoughts into the comforting receptacle of crap that is the internet in the hope that one day, through no fault of my own, someone of consequence might happen upon my ramblings and think to offer me copious sums of money to write about whatever I feel like, whenever the moment takes me. Because that's how it works, right?

But the problem with my writing is the same problem I have with my attitude to careers in general. Wildly fluctuating obsession is not conducive to getting ahead in life, or so it would appear. If I could pick a subject and stick to it, perhaps I might be a bit more driven to pursuing a final goal. But sometimes I write about music. And sometimes about sport. Sometimes even about film. And then sometimes, when I'm plummeting headlong toward an existential crisis, I write about myself. And the crap that goes on in my head. Not wise, really. Does the BBC have a position for 'Journalist without Portfolio', do you think? Obviously they'd have to lend me to Metalhammer, or Film Magazine, or possibly even Woman's Weekly once in a while, but that's okay, isn't it?

So here I am, being honest with my blog. Because goddamnit, if you can't be honest with a bundle of HTML coding that exists on a microchip or some other such nonsense, who can you be honest with? I don't even know if this is going to make it that far. Let’s face it, I'm not being honest at all; it's Monday night, and I'm typing into the draft message box of my Yahoo account whilst drinking red wine. I don't know why. I just felt the urge. So make me do something productive, will you? The furthest I've come in the last year or so to doing something about furthering my career was emailing a guy at a well-known music publication with a link to my blog and an offer of freelance work in my area. He actually responded, which was kind. He said they didn't have any work at the minute, but he suggested I didn't use the first person in my writing. But it's a blog... Okay, I take his point. Sort of.

Anyway, as a sort of catharsis, and a contract with myself and the internet, I will now lay bare for you all of the things that I have wanted to do with my life, over the years. Here is the list, in roughly chronological order (for some reason I can't remember what I wanted to be further back than about the age of 10):

When I grow up, I want to be:

Magazine editor, international swimmer, David Attenborough, novelist, RAF pilot, heart surgeon, primary school teacher, translator, speech therapist, English lecturer, international rower, rock radio DJ, journalist, bass player, A&R person, party planner, bookshop owner, choreographer, pub owner, screenwriter, festival organiser.

Notice the lack of 'postgraduate senior administrator' on that list. Hmm, funny that.

POSTSCRIPT: Seemingly goading me into action following my above rant (which I actually wrote last week), Fate dealt me a proverbial and timely kick up the derriere on Friday, as news of the impending doom of massive budget cuts to higher education struck and left us all fearing for our jobs.

Of course, I feel for the future students and their families, who have to bear the brunt of what is essentially going to be a tuition fee free-for-all (and not the good kind), but looking inward, the timing couldn’t really have been more ironic from a personal point of view and therefore, my new mission ('Balls; acquire a set') has been launched. It’s now or never people. I must launch myself from the precipice of doubt into the abyss of uncertainty and hope that there’s a trampoline at the bottom. Or at the very least, some light padding. Or a sandwich. Wish me luck!

And normal service is resumed… (or, why sporting success is bad for me)

I don't seem to cope well when teams and individuals I support in sport do well. It's all a bit, well, satisfying, to be honest, and frankly I was having a hard time reconciling my thoroughly British desire to have a whinge and be a bit glum with the success going on in my various areas of sporting interest. I'd become a bit giddy of late, what with Watford reaching the dizzying heights of fourth in the Championship and all the goals they’ve been scoring, and then I go and start supporting a new sports team and their response is to win immediately! It's all been too much for me, I've been having palpitations, you know. Luckily, the winning streak was soon to come to an end.

I mustered a respectable crowd of 5, including myself, for the Newcastle Vipers match against Coventry Blaze on Saturday night, following last week’s epiphany (that being that ice hockey is a sport I could really get involved in – see my previous post!). I even managed to drum up some actual enthusiasm! Mostly in anticipation of the numerous fights I had promised would break out (see, I told you it wasn’t just me!) but hey, they were there and that’s what counted.

We arrived early enough to see the pre-match warm-up which was quite a sight. Very well orchestrated training drills gave the impression of a tight-knit unit, which is what you would expect, they are professional athletes don't you know. But it proved to be a bit of a false prophet; not quite such a pretty picture was painted by the team when it came to the match itself. At first glance it appeared the Vipers were a little more organised than the previous week against Braehead Clan, and definitely more focused, with very little in the way of physical conflict – much to the disappointment of my brethren who were all but baying for blood, and also so it seemed later, to the detriment of the team.

Coventry were simply much more well organised and motivated, and they attacked Vipers netminder Charlie Effinger with increasing ferocity, systematically exposing the flaws in the Vipers’ defence culminating in a five-goal stand in the second period which effectively ended the game and put the kybosh on what might otherwise have been a jolly happy evening in Whitley Bay town centre. (Does it sound like I know what I’m talking about yet?).

Gone was the buzz of the previous week, to be replaced by an air of frustration and discontent at the dismal showing, one particularly disgruntled fan taking it out on a poor, unsuspecting seat right in front of us and almost causing foot-al injury to my better half (although I have a sneaking suspicion his anger may have been caused in part at least by a spot of domestic unrest rather than the hockey). Luckily seats don’t fight back, although I’m not so sure about his rather shouty spouse who stormed after him all guns blazing. Apparently it’s not just the players who get wound up at hockey matches.

On reflection, despite a pretty uninspiring performance, I did enjoy the evening. My understanding of the game has increased exponentially in the space of a week, the kaleidoscopic action shifting ever so subtley before my very eyes and dissolving into clarity, sort of like a big, cold, 3D magic eye picture. The hyperactive fly effect of the first night was substituted for a spectacle of grace and aggression – by no means a perfect exemplar of the game of ice hockey in general, but enough to enchant me nonetheless. I continued on to think that perhaps I should begin following the NHL. After all, they exhibit the game at its finest. But it’s a rather strange concept, selecting a team to support when you don’t have the slightest inclination of loyalty to any of the available options. I was thinking about basing my selection on the team with the coolest name (currently I’m between the Buffalo Sabres and Minnesota Wild) but in reality, it’s best for me to wait a couple of weeks and just see who settles at the bottom of the league. It’s best for all involved.

Elsewhere, and vying heavily for a spot in my rundown of depressing sporting news of the week, my favourite Americans Sam Querrey and Mardy Fish fared poorly in the Beijing ATP 500 tournament, Querrey being knocked out by in-form Frenchman Gilles Simon and Fish pulling out prior to his second round clash with Novak Djokovic with an ankle injury. Probably for the best as the Djoker is 5-0 up in the head-to-head statistics against Mardy. Not pretty! Sadly it also means he has withdrawn from the Shanghai Masters this week, so no Fishy action for me for some time to come it seems. I may have to resort to supporting Rafa again. Although he wins most of the time so I don’t think it’s a good idea on account of my fragile constitution and overly realistic expectations of my sporting charges.

The best thing about the weekend’s sport was that as no Premier League or Championship games were taking place, it was physically impossible for Watford or Sunderland to lose. Bonus! On the down side, England are taking on Montenegro in a European Cup qualifier tonight and it’s being televised on terrestrial channels, so I will feel obliged to watch it despite my impassioned vows to the contrary following the World Cup. Oh joy. Hopefully we’ll put in a mediocre performance and scrape a 1-0 victory in a predictable and entirely tame snooze-fest of a match. Any more than that, and I might have to start on the blood pressure medication.

It’s cold, it’s hard and it’s right outside my house: a novice’s review of an ice hockey match

Yes, it’s another post about sport. Really, I can’t help it. I haven’t been to any gigs lately. It’s not my fault. It’s not just any sport though. It’s that most whimsical and enigmatic sport generally embraced by those with colder climes than ourselves, ice hockey. I’ve never really thought about ice hockey before, other than a novelty visit to a match during my time in the states, 10 years ago (and that was in Arkansas so it really can’t have counted). So when my other half brought home free tickets to last Sunday’s Newcastle Vipers match I was mildly intrigued but thought no more of it until the time came for us to head to Whitley Bay ice rink.

Newcastle Vipers are an elite league ice hockey team who had suffered of late from a win-less run of matches in what was obviously a frustrating opening to their season. Or at least, that’s probably what someone who knew about British ice hockey would say at the beginning of a match report. I, on the other hand, was blissfully oblivious to any of the back-story at the time, but on reflection, the reactions that night of a clearly dedicated fan-base spoke of a team in desperate need of some success. I have been that fan on many an occasion in my long and tumultuous relationship with Watford FC, so I should have recognised it. And now I have, I’m right on board.

Okay I’ve bleated non-sensically for a bit but I can’t ignore the elephant in the room any longer. Being a total ice hockey noob, one of the few things I really knew about the sport was that they seem to have a lot of fights. I had wondered in passing whether being a bit cold perhaps makes one slightly irritable, or maybe it’s just the jock-itch beneath all that padding that puts a player in an argumentative frame of mind. Either way, anyone with even a vague knowledge of the sport knows that it goes on and is an accepted part of the game of ice hockey. Yet I have to say, I was still surprised to see it happening right in front of me. And I couldn’t actually tell at the time whether or not the fights were for real, or staged, something like wrestling. I was hedging towards the latter and wondering if it was all bit camp and unnecessary but after further discussion and research it appears that this isn’t the case at all. It probably only looks a bit camp because it’s hard to have a fight when both antagonists are on skates.

Apparently, fighting, or ‘roughing’ as it’s known in the sport, is tactically important as the players defend their most valuable team-mates and disrupt their opponents’ play, and although it isn’t officially allowed within the rules of game, it’s not severely punished either, and officials are content to stand back and let it run its course in most cases. It’s actually condoned as part of the game in the US. Is it wrong that I find it mildly arousing? Probably. But I know for a fact I am not the only one. And most of the others are men.

Anyway, besides the fighting, what else can I tell you about ice hockey, from my completely novice point of view. It’s a very American sport. And by that I mean, there are a LOT of stoppages in play. During which, a multitude of well-chosen popular music clips are played over the tannoy and/or the match announcer explains what’s just happened in language that only those who already know what’s just happened can understand. Altogether, this made the bits where they WEREN’T playing a lot more over-whelming and confusing than the bits when they were. Even though the game-play itself is carried out at approximately the speed of sound and appears to have about as much form and style as a hyperactive fly at an all night rave. It’s a game for those with the attention span of a goldfish. A goldfish with Alzheimers, at that. It was in no way unpleasant though. In terms of levels of understanding versus levels of enjoyment, I suppose I felt something akin to a toddler watching a group of drunken adults play Twister at Christmas. Wide-eyed and happy, but rather confused and slightly concerned for the welfare of all involved, including myself.

And also, I found myself in the novel and unnerving situation of not knowing what the offside rule was. It’s not just because I’m a woman, OKAY?! Don’t worry, it was the first thing I learnt during my subsequent ice hockey rules study session.

Yet there was something undeniably thrilling about the whole experience. Maybe it was just the knowledge that top level sport was being played right on my doorstep, and the excitement of expanding my mind around completely new game, hungry as I currently appear to be for a football substitute (and all this despite Watford’s current impressive run of form). Maybe it was the exotic sounding names on the team sheet, giving me leave to support a team with ‘Newcastle’ in its name despite my Mackem loyalties, after all, Blair Stayzer and Patrik Forsbacka can’t be Geordies, can they?! Or maybe it was just the chill in the air, the buzz of the crowd and the tension of the final few minutes that reminded me just how much fun it is to kick back and take in a live sporting event. There’s nothing quite like it. So I’m going back for more this Saturday.

As we later concluded, this is physically the closest top level sport to our home that currently exists (unless there’s a pro tiddly-winks league situated in the Billy Mill area of North Shields that I’m not aware of), and not only is that quite an exciting prospect, it also gives me no excuse not to get involved. Go Vipers!

U.S.Eh?

I don’t know why I’ve become such a US sympathiser when it comes to tennis. It’s not as if our pals across the pond are short of supporters in any of their sporting endeavours.

Or so you would think. As it goes, when it comes to tennis, the majority of American sports fans these days fall into one of two broad camps: indifference, or scornful disbelief – can the leader of the free world really no longer have a man in the world's top 10? It’s unthinkable. To a country that more often than not finds itself at the top of countless sporting leaderboards, not winning – at least sometimes – is simply not an option.

Perhaps this attitude is borne out of having so-called ‘world series’ competitions in your national sports but not inviting any other nations along to participate. I jest. Well, sort of. In all seriousness, the US has always been a nation that has excelled in all areas of sporting achievement. Their amazing strength in depth in both individual and team competition must surely come from the extensive infrastructure that supports, encourages and promotes sporting endeavour from pre-school right through to the exclusive college scholarships and lucrative cooperate sponsorship deals at the professional end. Sport is big business, but yet it appeals to every young American, the allure of honing yourself as a physical specimen whilst bringing home glory for the red, white and blue too strong for its wide-eyed and hopeful youth.

And tennis was no different. American mens’ tennis seemed to experience a perpetual glory era, and in my earliest memories of Wimbledon lurk the brash characters of Connors and Macenroe, followed in the 90’s by the consistently brilliant Sampras and the wildly talented and charimastic Agassi. A little later followed Andy Roddick, who although never seemingly reaching his full potential, still has a Grand Slam title under his belt and years in the top 10 to be proud of. America have always had a few guys at the top to shout about.

So why am I so bothered about them, and why now? The state of American tennis and the frustration at their recent lack of success felt by the general populace was never clearer than at this year’s US Open, where the current pretenders to the almighty shoes of Macenroe, Sampras et al were relentlessly interrogated by the American media about the pressure to perform and the almost pathological desire of Americans to be in the top 10.

‘We’re doing our best,’ replied Sam Querrey, the youngest of the current crop of top Americans at 23. He was pragmatic in his responses to the success-hungry media and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, and also view very distinct parallels between himself and some of our own athletes and sportspeople, as the pressure of national expectation was hung over him like the sword of Damocles. The British media are frequently lambasted by other countries for being too hard on our sportspeople and piling on the pressure, but it seems that the American media are no better. Despite an inconsistent year, the affable Querrey has won four ATP 250 titles, but has lacked confidence on the bigger stages and has openly admitted that at times he just isn’t at the top of his game. How much of this, one sometimes wonders, is down to the sheer weight of expectation being shovelled onto his not inconsiderable shoulders.

Coping better with the pressure it seems is Mardy Fish. The most experienced of the current in-form crop at the age of 28, Fish lost 30lbs following a special nutrition and fitness regime and has since become a completely new player, performing spectacularly in 2010. He has picked up two titles and numerous final appearances, and he put in one of the strongest American performances in history in the recent Davis Cup play-off against Chile, playing three of the four rubbers, totalling over 11 hours tennis in three consecutive days, singles and doubles, at 9000ft altitude, and all with the crowd against him. An absolutely Spartan effort.

Making up the trio of American hopefuls is 6’9” John Isner, who shot to tennis fame this year after his epic first round tie at Wimbledon against Nicolas Mahut. He really seems to be the hot prospect, currently developing the weaker areas of his game to add to the giant, high-bouncing serve that is already frustrating opponents at all levels, and has been tipped to break into the top 10 in 2011.

So maybe things aren’t so bad after all? To a British tennis fan, of course, four players in the top 25 is an unimaginable fantasy. But even if we had that, would we let them rest easy in the comfort of their already admirable achievements? Would we bollocks. We’d expect Grand Slam titles to be seeping from every gold-rimmed orifice, year after triumph-filled year. Would we have the right to expect this? Absolutely not. Do the Americans? Arguably, yes. I’m British and I can’t help but support the underdog. And however paradoxic it may seem, right now, unbelievably, in the world of tennis, Team America are just that.