THE Prime Minister swung the bat for under-privileged black children
in Johannesburg yesterday. Mr Major, opening donated cricket nets, was a
trifle rusty. Bowling he did better, knocking over the stumps of South
Africa's Sports Minister Mr Steve Tschwete.
Alexandra slum township youth Elite Matsitso, 14, who tossed three at
him said: ''He's a better bowler than batsman.''
Sir Colin Cowdrey, who was present to help launch an aid package of
#500,000 in British coaching and equipment for such youngsters, was
delighted but baffled by the ball that beat Mr Tschwete.It may have been
a googly. Mr Major himself seemed unclear. ''I'm quitting while I'm
ahead,'' he said. England vice-captain Alex Stewart diplomatically
withheld comment.
With the cricketers were soccer star Sir Bobby Charlton, Rob Andrew,
the English rugby stand-off and the athlete Judy Simpson.
Crafty Sir Bobby primed a bunch of under-12s to ask the Prime Minister
some questions that might get things done for them.
''Any of these kids good enough for Rangers?'' I asked Sir Bobby.
''All of them,'' he replied, in what I took to be a compliment to them
and an observation of Rangers.
Sure enough, Sipho Malunga, 15, got his chance to ask Mr Major his
carefully primed question about more coaching help. What he actually
said was: ''What's it like to be Prime Minister?''
''I'd rather be a sportsman,'' was the reply with feeling from the man
who confessed to being a ''sports nut''. At any rate, better than 30
minutes of Question Time every week.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article